What go to a pathologist?

Pathologists help care for patients every day by providing their doctors with the information needed to ensure appropriate patient care. They are valuable resources for other physicians 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

A pathologist is a physician who studies body fluids and tissues, helps your primary care doctor make a diagnosis about your health or any medical problems you have, and uses laboratory tests to monitor the health of patients with chronic conditions. They may also recommend steps you can take to prevent illness and maintain good health. For example, when your blood is drawn as part of your annual physical, a pathologist may supervise testing or perform tests to help assess your health. A pathologist will also examine a tissue biopsy to determine whether it is benign or you have cancer, and shares that information with your primary care doctor.

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Some pathologists specialize in genetic testing, which can, for example, determine the most appropriate treatment for particular types of cancer. Pathologists also perform autopsies, which not only determine the person’s cause of death but may also discover more information about the genetic progression of a disease. This discovery can help family members take preventive action for their own health and can aid researchers in developing future treatments.

Your pathologist is the doctor you may not have met, nor even know is caring for you. It’s true though, a pathologist is responsible for every lab test and pathology report. All treatment begins with the pathologist’s diagnosis. Take a look at a recent report and ask to speak with the pathologist if you have any questions. You should understand every word in the report and how your treatment is impacted. Here are some reasons why you should reach out. All treatment begins with a pathologist’s diagnosis. Pathologists make precision medicine possible. The pathologist is a crucial member of your care team. Pathologists are experts in quality, setting standards for accurate and precise diagnoses. Breakthrough cancer research often involves a pathologist on the team. No one understands your pathology report better than the doctor who wrote it: The Pathologist Pathologists oversee the quality of a hospital’s blood supply. Pathologists are experts in test utilization, frequently helping other doctors select “the right test for the right patient at the right time”. Tumor boards require the input of a pathologist. Every medical specialty intersects with pathology.

If you’ve ever been admitted to a hospital, had blood drawn, or peed in a cup you’ve been cared for by a pathologist. If you've had surgery, you've definitely been cared for by a pathologist. Pathology is broken down into two specialties, anatomic pathology, and clinical pathology. Those two areas are broken down into a number of subspecialties. Within anatomic pathology, there is surgical pathology (which has a number of subspecialties broken down by organ system), cytopathology, and autopsy pathology (with further specialization in forensic pathology). Within clinical pathology, there is clinical chemistry, immunology, microbiology, molecular pathology, hematopathology, transfusion medicine, and cytogenetics. My point in saying this is you can have as much or as little variety as you want in your practice and you can help people every single day. Isn't that the dead people's specialty?

Autopsy pathology is an important part of the specialty, and it seems that the only pathologists who get to spend a lot of time on TV are my forensics colleagues! All jokes aside, forensic pathology is one of the areas of pathology where having a personality to match your intelligence is immensely important. After all, you want the jury to like you when you testify! In reality, an autopsy is a very small part of the specialty; surgical pathology, cytopathology, and clinical pathology cases far exceed the number of autopsies performed. If you're interested in an autopsy, you could consider being a medical examiner, or you could consider teaching residents and directing a hospital autopsy service. Again, variety.

About that no patient contact myth. It's just that… a myth. I can't tell you how many people have told me that they could never consider pathology because they wouldn't get to see patients anymore. Nothing could be further from the truth. First, all pathologists see patients, just not in the traditional sense. Every time we hold a glass slide, or read a gel, or interpret a transfusion panel, we are seeing a patient. Now for those of you who need to physically lay hands on a patient, and that is the only thing keeping you away from pathology, I have good news for you. We have subspecialties that allow you to see patients in the traditional sense! In cytopathology, we learn to perform fine-needle aspiration (FNA) biopsies, where you use a fine gauge needle (25 or 23 gauge usually) to collect cells from a mass a patient has. I even learned to do them under ultrasound guidance in my fellowship. The best part about this is you can see the patient, do the procedure, and read the patient's slides, which allows you to do something other physicians cannot. In hematopathology, you can see the patient, perform their bone marrow biopsy, and interpret their biopsy AND flow cytometry findings. In transfusion medicine, blood bankers often see patients, particularly if the patient has a transfusion reaction or if they run an apheresis service. In short, if you love pathology but also need to see patients, there are ways to do that.

Pathologists help care for patients every day by providing their doctors with the information needed to ensure appropriate patient care. They are valuable resources for other physicians 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A pathologist is a physician who studies body fluids and tissues, helps your primary care doctor make a diagnosis about your health or any medical problems you have, and uses laboratory tests to monitor the health of patients with chronic conditions. They may also recommend steps you can take to prevent illness and maintain good health. For example, when your blood is drawn as part of your annual physical, a pathologist may supervise testing or perform tests to help assess your health. A pathologist will also examine a tissue biopsy to determine whether it is benign or you have cancer, and shares that information with your primary care doctor. Some pathologists specialize in genetic testing, which can, for example, determine the most appropriate treatment for particular types of cancer. Pathologists also perform autopsies, which not only determine the person’s cause of death, but may also discover more information about the genetic progression of a disease. This discovery can help family members take preventive action for their own health and can aid researchers in developing future treatments.

Pathologists can make a big difference in patients’ lives by investigating the cause of their illness and keep their lives clean of infection. They are playing an exciting and vital role in providing optimal patient care on a big scale. With their diagnostic, interpersonal, and research skills, pathologists can. They are well versed with different laboratory test utilization procedures, advanced digital imaging techniques to come up with the appropriate clinical decision. Pathologists understand the nature of every type of infection and make sure every patient gets proper treatment.

Pathologists are medical scientists who are responsible for studying the type of disease or infection, causes, and possible effects. They offer a wide array of services to nearly every aspect of clinical medicine. They determine why a disease or infection occurred, how the cells or tissues were damaged, figure out the signs, symptoms, and other clinical investigations to reach a diagnosis.

These are still rare encounters with patients. Pathologists are often unseen and unrecognized physicians. But, we play a significant role in patient care. We encourage clinicians to tell patients they’re welcome to visit us, go over their pathology report and slides and ask us our perspective of these cancers.

I see patients as part of cancer survivor programs and find they often harbor misconceptions about their diseases, don’t know what kind of cancer they have, or even what cancer is. Sometimes, we have roundtable discussions groups of survivors about their individual cancers and pathology reports – always a popular activity.

Check out the following resources to help you with a pathologist:

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Living with Rheumatoid Arthritis: https://amzn.to/3a1De61

Spark Cards Jr Basic Sequence Cards for Storytelling and Picture Interpretation Speech Therapy Game, Special Education Materials, Sentence Building, Problem Solving, Improve Language Skills: https://amzn.to/2OcmNLJ