Academic Pathology最新文献

In medical education, pathology has traditionally been concentrated in only the preclinical years, often without sufficient emphasis on its practical application in clinical practice. Correspondingly, medical students' interest in pathology as a career has been low. To address this issue and foster a deeper understanding of pathology's clinical relevance and encourage appropriate utilization, we introduced a required exposure to pathology in the surgery clerkship featuring clinicopathological case review in a small group setting. Unlike other approaches, we wanted to create a program that concentrates on pathology cases directly linked to patients whom students cared for during their clerkship rotation, emphasizing the relevance of pathology diagnosis. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive from participating students, who report an increased awareness of pathology's importance in patient management and of the significance of interdisciplinary collaboration between pathologists and clinicians. A notable feature of this program is its relatively low time and personnel requirements, which facilitate inclusion in the busy clerkship and acceptance in the Department of Pathology. Challenges, such as timely case selection and administrative co-ordination, are being addressed to optimize the program's implementation. In the future, we are considering expanding this model to other clerkships. By rekindling interest in pathology through practical engagement and highlighting its real-world relevance, this approach offers a promising strategy to counteract recruitment challenges in this crucial medical field.

Boot camps in medical education have emerged as effective tools for addressing knowledge gaps and facilitating the integration of incoming residents into clinical training. We developed a pathology boot camp designed on a needs assessment survey, the graduated release of responsibility model, and active involvement of senior residents as educators. A comprehensive survey was administered to current first-year residents to assess educational needs to identify significant knowledge gaps and difficult areas. Based on these findings, a four-week, three-phase curriculum was developed, comprising introductory didactics, hands-on training, and mentorship under senior residents. Pre- and post-tests, as well as resident surveys, were used to evaluate the efficacy of the boot camp curriculum. Senior residents unanimously expressed the need for a boot camp, expressing challenges in histology, workflow, autopsy, and laboratory operations. Pre- and post-boot camp assessment tests showed a 15% knowledge improvement. Most pathology programs across the country have implemented structured pathology boot camps. The strengths of our boot camp included the emphasis on the previous year's residents' feedback, and the challenges that they encountered, serving as a comparison group; a graduated release of responsibility model; and the involvement of senior residents as designated mentors for the duration of the boot camp. The pathology boot camp presented here serves as a promising model for addressing foundational knowledge deficits among incoming residents. By tailoring the curriculum to meet specific educational needs and leveraging senior residents as educators, institutions can better prepare residents for the challenges of clinical training.

Electronic medical records (EMRs) allow for the creation of “fictional” and unknown patients within the EMR production environment. Surprisingly, there is sparse literature regarding the use cases for these patients or the challenges associated with their existence in the EMR. Here, we identified three classes of patients in regular use at our institution: true fictional patients with medical record numbers (MRNs) used to test EMR functions in the production environment, “confidential patients” used to store sensitive data, and “unknown” patients that are assigned temporary MRNs in emergency situations until additional information can be acquired. A further layer of complexity involving the merging of records for unknown patients once they are identified is also explored. Each class of patients, real or fictional, poses a variety of challenges from a clinical laboratory standpoint, which are often dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Here, we present a series of instructional cases adapted from actual patient safety events at our institution involving fictional, confidential, and unknown patient records. These illustrative cases highlight the utility of these fictional and unknown patients, as well as the challenges they pose on an institutional and individual level, including issues that arise from merging clinical data from temporary MRNs to identified patient charts. Lastly, we provide recommendations on how best to manage similar scenarios that may arise.

Grossing is essential to the practice of anatomic pathology. The importance of this skill cannot be understated, but it simultaneously can be enigmatic for novice pathology residents. Successful grossing asks questions to yield the most accurate answers which facilitate a complete report and diagnosis for patient care. To provide a unified framework of approach to grossing specimens, we devised the PRIME (P = process/picture, R = relationships, I = internal, M = margins, E = external) model for grossing. The PRIME model was introduced to anatomic pathology trainees (n = 21) at two academic hospitals through an interactive workshop featuring multiple exercises: (1) scoring provided inadequate gross descriptions of common, familiar objects (fruit) for content quality before and after introduction of the PRIME model, (2) building a gross description as a group with a representative fruit specimen using PRIME, (3) videos of grossing specimens which the participants used to practice constructing their own gross description using PRIME, and (4) analysis of an example surgical specimen's gross description using PRIME. Pre- and post-workshop questionnaires assessed the trainees' experience with grossing before residency, their confidence to write a gross description, and their opinions of the PRIME model. The assessment of fruit gross descriptions before and after the introduction of PRIME was significant (p < 0.05), as well as the participants' confidence level to write an accurate gross description using PRIME. The PRIME model and workshop help to fill a void in pathology education and erode perceived barriers to confident grossing by providing a framework of the key concepts behind grossing specimens, no matter the complexity.

This study investigates the effectiveness of using residual human anatomical materials, obtained from a gross anatomy course, for training Pathologists' Assistant (PathA) students in surgical pathology techniques. We utilized two surveys to assess the perceived efficacy of this approach: one survey targeted PathA students to evaluate their training experiences with both human and animal tissues, while the other assessed the impact of specimen collection on the educational experiences of gross anatomy course students.

Pathology is not traditionally chosen by medical students applying to residency. In osteopathic medical schools, limited access to dedicated pathology faculty further complicates this issue. Because of a lack of pathology experiences, osteopathic medical students may not be as familiar with a pathology career. The purpose of this brief report is to describe the pilot experience of implementing a pre-existing web-based, free virtual platform for pathology education as alternative, supplemental exposure to pathology for osteopathic medical students at our institution. We began to offer the online pathology elective for Academic Year 2022–2023. Using the online free service of PathElective, this course provided a valuable exposure to pathology with multiple modules in anatomic, clinical, and digital/molecular pathology, before and after assessments, recorded videos by pathology experts, handouts, and reading assignments. During the first week, three introductory modules were required followed by weeks 2–4, in which the students would complete a total of 10 modules of their own choice. In total, 14 students participated in this virtual rotation from August 2022–May 2023. All chose cardiac pathology as the most popular module. Three of the 14 students matched into pathology residencies. This small cohort of 4th year medical students at our osteopathic medical school successfully completed a virtual elective rotation with the resources of PathElective. We report the success of this experience and hope to continue monitoring progress.