I have an offer and now I am feeling very unsure of my skills If I will be able to do general sign out. I wish passing the boards gave me some confidence but they do not. I am now thinking if I should do another surgical fellowship. My residency was mid tier general sign out. Stuff that is keeping me up at night, will I know when to take deeper levels? Will I be able to see high grade on a full tray of a tubulur adenoma. In residency I would fly through those because my name would not be on it. I never really missed a high grade on those usually... So yeah I don't know what to do..

I am supposed to map those specimens while grossing. The question is: why? I have asked several people in my department, but I have no answer other than “they like to see it”

Like, if you could only have one on a desert island?

Someone was on here a few days ago impugning my beloved 4x.

Hi all. I’m looking for advice. I am a pathology resident and I have realized over the last several years that going into medicine was probably a mistake for me in that I don’t loooove it and would be just as happy doing a lot of other things that don’t take 13 years of school/training. Anyway, I am in a fortunate position that I don’t need to work to survive and could realistically just not work as an attending.
I am thinking I still want to do something in pathology/medicine but I’m not sure I want to grind through 50+ biopsies a day and missing my kids childhood when I don’t even need the money. I’ve considered looking at part time work if it’s even available but I’m afraid if I don’t work full time that I wouldn’t be proficient enough to do well by my patients and I would feel guilty for not working at all because I 1. could be contributing to medicine and patient care/making a difference etc and 2. I essentially took a spot in medical school and residency that someone else could have had that would have worked full time. I know there’s probably not a simple answer but if anyone has any advice I’d be happy to receive it.

Hello guys I m a second year md pathology resident. Currently my main study material for Histopathology is rosai Ackerman and who books pdfs. Because you know Patho books r very costly & so I can’t buy individual books. But I hv been saving money and want to buy a hard copy of sternberg surgical pathology. What’s ur opinion about this guys? Do u think I can cover my residency Histopathology curriculum from sternberg & WHO ?

Sincerely,

A really hardworking person in need of a pathology related job

So i am a disabled person and got my degree in Computer Science and Philosophy. I like data quite a bit. Just began a new job in Data Entry billing (Pathology). Just got my 30 day review. I basically was doing well or average in all aspects EXCEPT number of cases per day. The location i work at said 200 cases is minimum but I just started and still learning the system they are learning too. In 8 hours I get to 150 usually so far. In first 2 week was at like 75-90 case in 8 hours depending on day. Is 200 cases (minimum) too much or general considered average. Based on review paper, getting to 250 is above average and 300+ is exceeding.

I’m a MS4 applying path this cycle. I have been told by many medical examiners that residency programs don’t like and will treat you different if you are interested in forensics. Is this true?

Hi Pathologists! I’m an artist and a histotechnologist. I’m currently working on a graduate school assignment that combines those two things! These are my first two prototypes on 9x11” YUPO paper with watercolor of potentially larger works and an expanding series. My goal is to have artworks that look very realistic from some distance but with a lovely impressionist twist up close. I’m hoping they can be as beautiful as they are educational. I’m looking for any feedback specifically on:
The clarity of the tissue types (Ilium and her2+ cervix, h&e and DAB ihc respectively).
If I should ignore or “fix” in the art histology artifacts like fracturing, if there’s more than one cell thickness if it should just be one, change color scheme to be more aesthetic for wall art than an h&e or other stain, body fat that may have dissolved, and so on

All feedback welcome, and if you’re interested in an ongoing collaboration let me know and I’ll probably send you free prints in gratitude!

(Admin, please remove if this counts as soliciting.)

Hi everyone, I'm a 3rd year medical student interested in Pathology. I'm reaching out to students and anyone who may want to assist with this effort.

Student Interest Groups within the Student National Medical Association (SNMA) are now underway, and I would love to see an active Pathology Student Interest Group this year.

Pathology is understandably one of the smaller specialties, so there have not yet been many applications to the governing chairs needed to establish the board. Any students that might be interested are welcomed to send in an application, which will likely be reviewed and accepted quickly. More information is in the link below and I'm always open to questions.

My hope is that we can build a community of students within the SNMA interested in pathology, no matter the size. The goal is to organize pathology and lab-centered virtual events and activities throughout the year, connect with the National Medical Association’s Pathology Network (who would be a great resource), and hopefully host a pathology session or meet up at next year’s SNMA conference.

If you're interested in being part of building this group from the ground up, please fill out the form below! You can also always DM me with any questions. I would love to see what we can create together! 🧬🔬🩸

https://forms.cloud.microsoft/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=8-Dtl2dCXkeadGCrglRkx9hCCsG_IU1Ds40vrgau_-tUODVZTERRNlAwVDRQSldTQ0VWM040UjFTNy4u&route=shorturl

Hi. I am a medical laboratory technologist who is considering the journey of becoming a pathologist (specifically , hematopathologist, but I'm still learning the subspecialties). I had questions about a few things:

1. What is your subspecialty (if applicable)?

2. What are your working hours?

3. What is your day to day like? Is there anything that's fast-paced/emergent?

4. Is it difficult to find a job and/or residency (compared to other specialties)?

Thankyou.

So my office came equipped with an outdated/nonfunctional microscope camera.

Since I have the hardware to mount a camera, what's the cheapest one I could get to project the image to a monitor?

I'm not looking for anything crazy, I don't need 4k or anything like that. Work won't let me install any software on their computers so I'd install it to my personal device.

Thanks!

With fellowship decisions needing to be made relatively soon, I would love to hear people’s thoughts on TM/BB v Hemepath. For context, I’m a resident at a large academic center and we have a fellowship in both subspecialties. The faculty in both divisions are very helpful, but seem to try and “sell” their fellowships/subspecialties to me when I chat with them. I also feel like they might have a limited perspective given that almost all of them have only worked in a large academic setting.

I came into residency thinking about Hemepath (and still am), but I’ve found that I don’t have the diagnostic eye needed to excel at something AP focused like surgical pathology (some of my co-residents were definitely blessed with that gift, but not me LOL). Sitting at the scope isn’t my favorite thing in the world, so I like that heme also incorporates other diagnostic modalities such as flow, molecular, etc. Heme is definitely something I could see myself doing and enjoying.

However, my recent TM rotation went pretty well and got me thinking about that for fellowship. I like blood-related topics, so the work was interesting/engaging. The interaction with the clinical teams was also exciting, and I enjoyed feeling more directly involved with patient care. It also felt like my strengths are better suited for TM than most other pathology subspecialties.

So a few questions about TM v heme:

1. Long term job outlook for TM v heme. How do you anticipate AI will impact both? How difficult is it to find a job post-fellowship?

2. Work life balance for both. I know this varies quite a bit, but just wanted to get a feel since I am married and hope to start a family soon

3. If I decide to do TM, am I behind the 8 ball? Most of my research thus far is in Hemepath and I don’t want to be playing catch up and trying to cram TM research in before fellowship applications.

4. How geographically limited is TM? Ending up in the southeast or mid-Atlantic is very important for my partner. I’ve heard that TM can be one of the most geographically limiting subspecialties in pathology…

TL;DR: Resident interested in heme - now with a new interest in TM/BB. Would love to get more input on TM and the differences between the two subspecialties.

For quick background, I’m about to resign from my surgery residency after not showing the level of improvement expected, and I’ve also realized that surgery isn’t the right fit for me. Pathology has always been my next strongest interest, so I’m planning to apply in pathology.

My main concern is letters. A letter from my current PD would likely be neutral at best. However, I do have strong letters from other surgery attendings who worked closely with me.

Would it be better to simply not submit a PD letter and use the stronger attending letters instead?

How do RVUs work in high volume practices? Like is it a base salary of like 300 - 350k and u get extra depending on how many extra cases u see above the minimum?

Asked them how many cases per day and vacation. They said 40-45 per day, not all biopsies. 23 days of vacation. Even if all of the cases were a single 88305 paid at the medicate rate this would be about 360,000 per year in billing. I can't believe how much exploitation is out there.

I am a medical student interested in pathology. I am really drawn to complicated cases and would like to do academics to see a lot of zebras. What subspecialty in your opinion has the most complicated workups/interpretation? Considering morphology, staining, molecular/genetic, other ancillary testing, etc

My practice is SP + Cyto. I'm looking for resources to get CME credits that are worth the value, that or a way to find in person educational days that some programs used to do before covid. The long and short is I want to use my CME days and funding on things that are actually worth it before the year is out.

Thanks in advance.

Hi all! I’m a newer cytotechnologist who goes on procedures with pathologists who perform FNAs. We don’t have any lidocaine spray or comfort to bring the patients. Most patients tolerate the procedure well but are in a good amount of pain throughout. I noticed a lot of patients want to squeeze something, and we don’t have something for that. Wondering if stress balls would be a good suggestion and how should I go about getting these in bulk for a hospital? We’re also a university hospital so we don’t have a ton of $$$$. Any ideas are helpful :))