Hello everyone! I would love to hear about the experiences and advice of people participating in the match this season. What would you do differently?

There’s nothing more valuable than experience, so I would be very grateful if you could share yours! Whether good, bad, crazy, or smooth—whatever your experience.

Thank you, and have a blessed holiday season!

I am considering practicing pathology at the VA and I had a couple of questions for anyone currently working in that health system:

1. How is pathology organized in the VA? Does nearly every VA Health Center have at least one, even in smaller towns, or do they mostly work in larger centers?
2. What would you say (based on your own experience) are the benefits/drawbacks working in the VA system as opposed to other health systems?
3. Are there any subspecialties of pathology that would be especially useful working in a VA setting? Alternatively, are there any specialties that are less useful?

Thank you all for your help.

Hi! I’m an IMG considering a 6-year training program (AP/CP + 2 fellowships or neuro) on an H1B visa. I’d like to know how easy (or difficult) it was for others in a similar situation to transition to a Green Card through an employer.

Is it essential for IMGs on an H1B to finish training at year 5 to ensure they have time left on their H1B for the Green Card process?

Any advice or insights on this would be greatly appreciated, as it will help me plan my residency path more carefully.

Hi guys, I’m a second year medical student from India and this year I want to take part in a research project. I went to the faculty guide and she told me to look up various previous year research papers and let me know my area of interest. I really have no clue of how to go about it. Can anyone guide me regarding this. What should my approach be to select a topic? What are the fundamental areas of research in this field? Any areas of research for the common diseases in India like hypertension, diabetes?

I’ve been a PA for almost 5 years now and I’m starting to have doubts about this career. I don’t feel challenged anymore since I work at a large academic hospital and have grossed numerous specimens, including very complex and/or rare specimens. There’s no growth potential in my career and it’s hard to see myself doing this for 30+ years. This career is comfortable and the pay is decent but I have this desire to be challenged and to want to learn/know more. I’m seriously considering upending my comfortable and safe life to go to medical school at the ripe old age of 33/34. I guess I’m wanting to know if this is stupid and unrealistic? Do you know of any pathologists’ assistants that became a pathologist? Do you have any other advice?

Relatively new in practice and I'm wondering how long you guys spend on cases. Maybe a urine or pap smear, GI biopsy, etc. Thanks.

What can an academic transfusion medicine pathologist do to make extra money plasma donor center, legal work, and other opportunities? How much do these things pay? How do you get into these avenues?

Thanks!

Hello, I am a consultant pathologist in india. I have applied for Specialist assessment in anatomical pathology in Australia. But due to long queue and there is too much waiting in the process meanwhile I am thinking of giving FRCpath. But I am not sure how much help it can be of. Please share your thoughts on the Same.

Dear Pathology Community,

The Ankoma Team extends our sincerest gratitude for your continuous engagement with our project. We've made several edits directly based on your feedback from the suggested edits survey, Discord chats, and personal communications.

Composed of pathology residents and medical students, the Ankoma Team shares the goal of creating an Anki deck primarily for board studying. Our deck can be used either as a comprehensive study aid throughout residency or selectively by using sub-decks during dedicated board preparation or during the course of residency.

Since our last release, we have almost doubled the size of the deck—from 8,918 cards to 17,488—and have made numerous revisions. The deck is now approximately 75% complete.

To access this deck:

Please follow these instructions (if you were previously Discord-verified, skip to Step 4):

1. Join our Discord group: Log onto Discord and join the Ankoma Discord group: Ankoma Discord
2. Complete the Google Form: Fill out the Google Form and ensure you provide your Discord username.
3. Get verified: Wait until you are granted "verified" status, which will allow you to access the channel containing the link to the Ankoma Deck.
4. Download the Ankoma Anki deck: Once verified, download the deck by accessing a restricted Discord channel.

To import this deck, please follow the instructions below carefully to ensure that the process is seamless:

If you're currently using a previous version of the Ankoma deck:

• First, in case anything goes wrong, store a backup of your current deck by selecting the settings icon next to the Ankoma deck on the overview screen. Make sure to select “Include scheduling information”
• Download the new version using the instructions above, then open the file
• An “Import File” pop-up will appear
• Under “updates,” select “Always” for the fields “Update notes” and “Update notetypes”
• Do not select any other option (i.e. Import any learning progress; Import any deck presets; Merge notetypes)

If you do not have Anki and would like to start using this deck, please download Anki from https://apps.ankiweb.net/ and then import the downloaded deck.

Note #1: Deletion of outdated cards: There are almost 200 cards marked as #delete. These cards have been replaced with optimized versions. Please delete all cards with this tag to avoid redundancies and remove outdated content.

Note #2: Deletion of empty cards: Our editing process produced a few dozen empty cards that need to be deleted upon importing the deck. To delete empty cards, navigate to Tools ->Empty Cards -> Delete

Note #3: Optimizing database: To clean up the deck (e.g. removing empty tags), navigate to Tools->Check database

Note #4: Delete extra images: To remove images that stayed behind despite deleting the associated cards, navigate to Tools -> Check Media -> Delete unused. Afterwards, navigate to Check Media again and select “Empty Trash”

Note #5: Re-imported deleted cards: If you previously deleted cards from Ankoma, these cards will be re-imported with this deck. In the future, we recommend suspending and tagging unwanted cards with a unique identifier instead of deleting them outright to avoid re-importing them with subsequent Ankoma updates.

Our deck is under continual revision as we strive to create a resource that balances efficient study time with appropriate breadth for the pathology boards. Recently, ABPath released a draft of their Content Specifications, and we look forward to updating the deck to match those requirements, which will involve deleting irrelevant cards and adding more high-yield topics.

We kindly ask members who have used the previous Ankoma deck to fill out the following survey. It will take just 2–3 minutes of your time and will greatly help us understand how the deck is used and where we can improve: Ankoma Survey

Additionally, please continue to submit suggested edits using this link: Suggested Edits

Thank you for your continued engagement,

The Ankoma Team

Hi all,

I'm currently an MS3, who's interested in rads/path. I like the workflow of both specialties and I've done electives in both. I do think I'd prefer path however; I'm not a fan of the pace of rads and I think I would feel less stressed as a pathologist. I also don't think anatomy is that interesting either.

I'm colorblind however, (protan-can't see red very well). I've spoken with two attendings so far and they immediately suggested pursuing careers in CP. I feel like I'm more interested in the AP side of path (Surg path, cyto, etc.), and I don't think I'd consider careers in CP. Honestly, if wasn't colorblind, I think I would for sure apply pathology. You guys are so chill and smart. I'm just not sure how I would fare in residency/beyond if I have trouble seeing colors.

If anyone has any insight, I'd much appreciate it :)

TLDR: MS3 interested in path but unsure if red-green colorblindness would be a hindrance

Hello all, this is the first time I've ever asked a question on Reddit. I was wondering where we're at with Bird Flu and where we may be headed next; what are the societal implications of a potential Bird Flu pandemic? COVID is still sort of going around but doesn't seem nearly as prevalent as it used to be - it's still hospitalizing people and there's a new variant but it's definitely died down a lot. I see Bird Flu being mentioned a lot in the news and I can't really decide if we're taking it seriously enough or if we're overestimating the whole deal; could Bird Flu be very bad? Are we even ready to deal with another possible COVID-level pandemic? Should we be paying more attention to MPOX than we are to Bird Flu? Is Bird Flu more contagious than COVID as a communicable disease or is this not yet known? Bird Flu seems pretty prevalent as a foodborne illness or seems to be more commonly found in foodstuffs like raw milk but could it be more harmful than/more easily transmissible than COVID?

I have been trying to decide on a specialty to pursue within pathology and have been curious about forensic pathology. I have worked with a few in my medical training so far and have had a wonderful time. However, I have been wondering about the normal career opportunities in forensics. Everyone I’ve met or heard about has either worked for a Coroner’s Office or as a Medical Examiner, depending on the state. Are there any hospital-oriented or otherwise private career paths for a forensic pathologist, or do they all mostly fill the above mentioned fields?

Thank you in advance for your input.

We were watching an Errol Flynn movie and I said, "Didn't he die in Vancouver?" and then looked that up. Yes, he did and his body was taken for an autopsy handled by the coroner, Glen McDonald. Though Flynn had died of a heart attack, his other organs were so shot that the coroner ultimately ruled his death as due to “natural causes.” And that included his penis which was covered with enormous genital warts which chief pathologist, Tom Harmon, removed to use in teaching. An outraged McDonald demanded the chief pathologist put them back which Harmon did...with scotch tape!

Errol Flynn, warts and all

Hi, so I created an account (the free one for foreign doctors of selected countries) in the cap website but to fully activate it, they are researching if I am really a doctor.

Fully understandable but for some reason, all my mexican documents have been rejected and they keep asking for a document to prove I am a doctor. At this point, I am very close to just send everything I have and hope they decide one of them is good enough but before doing that, I would like to see how exactly other non-US people managed to do it

Thanks!!

Hello all! I work in clinical research, and work for a company that helps pharmaceutical companies manage and run their clinical trials.

We are currently in early start-up on a NSCLC trial for patients with high PDL1 expression (greater than or equal to 50%).

We are currently designing our database and there was an issue that we ran into in our last NSCLC trial that I’d like to avoid on this one, but there’s some insight needed into how most institutions in the U.S. , as well as other regions if possible, report the results of their PD-L1 assays.

Here’s the background: on our previous NSCLC trial, PD-L1 expression was not a key endpoint or part of eligibility but we did collect it as an additional data point. Any assay that was used was fine. But the TPS score, if available could only be reported as a 1-3 digit score (numerical only with no symbols or ranges allowed). This caused problems because there were some sites where the pathology report from their institution or the lab where PD-L1 testing was done only contained a range or the expression category (>=1%, >=50%, >=90%).

Now in this current trial, since PD-L1 expression is part of eligibility, sites will need to use specific assays, so not every assay can be used like in the previous trial.

At this time, only the 22C3 and SP263 assays are allowed.

I’ve reviewed the manufacturer’s reporting guidelines for the 22C3 assay, and I do see that the raw TPS score, along with the TPS expression category, are recommended to be on the report.

However, I seem to recall that at least a few of our U.S. sites had lab reports that did not report the raw score, and only had the expression category, or the raw score was stated as a range.

However, it’s not clear if these sites were using the 22C3 assay or the SP263 assay.

So my question is this: Does anyone know of any labs/institutions (especially in the US) where a raw TPS score (1-3 digit raw percentage that is not a range and not expressed as >=x percent) is NOT provided on the lab report that is provided to the ordering physician?

I know this may be a long shot, but thought I’d see if anyone on here might be familiar with how things are reported on the actual lab report and whether this may be a concern for these 2 assays in particular.

Thank you in advance for any insights you may be able to offer!

Should a 7 mm lung tumor staining for sclerosing pneumocytoma and neuroendocrine hyperplasia be treated with surgery?

I’ve have never seen this used locally, how helpful do people find this immuno? Is it just used in academics or would people in the community find it useful? Thanks!

Hi! I'm a current fellow and a long-time lurker and first-time poster. Currently interviewing for jobs right now, and I wanted to learn more about the different job environments. What makes a private practice group good vs bad?

What're the differences between industry vs PE (been reading a lot of bad things about PE)?

Some places I've talked to say they're PE funded but physician led does that make a difference?

Lastly, I'd appreciate any tips or advice while interviewing / negotiating.

I am planning to make a slide box for training in Histopathology, specifically for FRCPath. I am collecting some from nearby labs. Can I buy some online?

Hi!

I’m a 4th year medical student applying to pathology this cycle and I’m grateful to have gotten a couple of interviews. Some of the programs I’ve interviewed at are top-tier programs, but I’m not sure of my chances of matching to these programs as a DO. I was just curious to learn about others’ experiences and wanted to see if anybody can share their own stories about how match day went as a DO applying to pathology!

Thank you!😊

I was wondering if anyone has any experience with closed loop cameras recording bench work (to help find cause of errors) in academic training institutions. It seems like major private practice institutions as well as MSK use them. I am interested in knowing how this affects the workplace environment and if it is used to evaluate residents. Thanks!

I had an attending tell me any patient that gets their biopsies/resection signed out by anyone without a fellowship in that field is getting substandard care...is this dramatic? Or do other pathologists feel that subspecialty signout should become the standard of care?

Hello everyone,

I'm an MS4 interviewing at several pathology programs. I have a vague understanding of the differences between academia on the one hand and community/private practice on the other.

Academia is lower pay, higher prestige, more specialized, (supposedly) lower volume, etc.

I understand that research, connections, conferences, etc. are probably important, but I just wanted to ask explicitly what I should think about in residency to be able to go into academia if I wanted to.

I don't have my heart set, so for the moment I will stay open to going non-academia as well. I don't want to pigeon myself by only doing AP or CP, for instance.

Hi everybody: Due to ppl leaving this department in the next few months. I am expecting to taking more calls than usual. I am trying to negotiate with the admin about getting paid extra for those weeks. What kind rate should I ask for? 500 Per night? Or per week? 🙏

I'm thinking of going for pathology in future, can y'all recommend some websites/books that would help me with reading slides.