Pathologist-clinician collaboration: A marriage of necessity toward improving the quality of patient care

Abstract

Collaboration between the pathologist and clinician has been found to be indispensable in improving the quality of patient care especially in, but not limited to, the area of cancer management and care.[2] Even though some sort of communication or collaboration exists between pathologists and their clinical colleagues, it is often circumstantial and usually occasioned by clinicopathological discrepancies recognized by the clinician. What is more sinister is the deliberate withholding of pertinent clinical information by the requesting physician who tries to justify this act by claiming that he/she would be preempting the pathologist by giving all the necessary clinical details. This practice is not only frustrating to the pathologist but is also a very dangerous for the patient with potentially enormous medical, legal, and financial consequences.[3,4]