June 2023—Three initiatives are underway at the American Board of Pathology, one of which its CEO Gary Procop, MD, MS, describes as “a new era of transparency and collaboration.”
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April 2023—At the medical center of the University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City, patients are not screened for bladder cancer using urine cytology because the pathology department does not have the capability for such screening. But that may soon change, thanks to an organization focused on using digital pathology to increase the availability of pathology education resources in developing countries.
Read More »In surgical services, stewardship steps reduce lab orders
February 2023—Consensus on the best ways to stem unnecessary laboratory testing, and spare health care systems and patients its negative effects, is still elusive.
Read More »Looking for lab staff here, there, and overseas
August 2022—Higher wages help to fill open positions, when they can be offered, but in a labor market that’s as tight as ever, they’re often just a start. That’s why many laboratories are casting wider nets, though the hiring solutions tend to be long term.
Read More »Transgender care, in and beyond the lab
July 2022—Gabrielle Winston-McPherson, PhD, could be talking about almost any aspect of laboratory medicine as she recounts how the Henry Ford Health chemistry division, in which she is associate director, has identified a patient care need. She talks about the desire to improve health outcomes. Identifying problems in the preanalytical process. Appropriate test utilization. Putting together a team to develop training material. Assembling data and information prior to implementation. Informatics challenges. And, naturally, the perpetual financial concern of ensuring allocation of limited resources. How else would she—or any other laboratory professional—talk about the lab’s role in transgender health care? In fact, there are many other ways to discuss the topic. “It’s been in the news a lot these days, obviously,” says Matthew Krasowski, MD, PhD, clinical professor and vice chair, clinical pathology and laboratory services, University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics. In fact, there are many other ways to discuss the topic.
Read More »The post-sophomore fellowship and other pieces of the pipeline
June 2022—Jobs in pathology are plentiful and positions are hard to fill, which has put the pipeline in the limelight. CAP TODAY publisher Bob McGonnagle led a virtual discussion with two pathologists and a pathology resident.
Read More »For inspectors, a new and better training course
May 2022—Users of the CAP’s redesigned laboratory inspector training course, introduced last December, should find it to be more fun, less chore, and tailored to what they need to know, say those who developed the new course. And it’s open and accessible to all.
Read More »Cytopathology in focus: The cytopathology workforce through a DEI lens
May 2022—The ineffectiveness of the U.S. health care system is well documented. The United States consistently allocates more resources for health care compared with other industrialized countries, while not holding the top spots for desired outcomes. A significant percentage of Americans is underinsured or uninsured, and access to quality care is widely asymmetrical among different racial and ethnic groups. Early in the pandemic, COVID-19 highlighted these health inequities in which Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and immigrants were the populations to disproportionately experience disparities related to burden of disease and mortality.
Read More »At Penn State, a fast track to pathology residency
March 2022—A new program called Pathology Accelerated Pathway at Penn State shepherds pathology-bound students toward residency readiness in three years instead of four and is set to begin this spring.
Read More »After the switch: high-sensitivity troponin
February 2022—Like growing old gracefully, moving to high-sensitivity cardiac troponin is both easier and more complex than it often appears. Stacy Beal, MD, thought clinical colleagues might be intimidated by switching assays. Dr. Beal was fully prepared to field worries about increased admissions, more consults, and other disaster scenarios. Instead, what surprised Dr. Beal, a member of the CAP Quality Practices Committee, was the ease with which some thought change could occur. “We heard people saying, ‘Just move the decimal point over two spots,’” she recalls. “I think we started hearing that from the day we started talking about it.” Could simply moving the decimal work? As Dr. Beal notes, “It’s hard to argue with that method, but we truly tried to tell them not to—that they needed to interpret this in a totally different way, and to view the different units as a new assay that’s very different from our previous assay.” “Maybe it’s our own fault,” Dr. Beal concedes. When the lab presented its correlation data, the new units were presented on one axis, while the old ones appeared on another.
Read More »What influences med students to choose pathology?
January 2022—It’s not curriculum. It’s visibility. That’s the upshot of two companion studies on what influences U.S. medical students to choose pathology as a specialty, say Cindy B. McCloskey, MD, chair of the CAP’s Graduate Medical Education Committee, and Melissa R. George, DO, a member of the committee. Their study of allopathic medical students was published in 2020, and their latest study, of osteopathic medical students, has been submitted for publication.
Read More »‘The stakes are high’—taking on workplace well-being
March 2021—A focus on workplace well-being is worthwhile all the time but never more so than now. “Everyone knows health care worker fatigue is amplified during the pandemic,” says Sarah M. Bean, MD, professor of pathology and pathology medical co-director of the dermatology/pathology clinical research unit, Duke University School of Medicine.
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