Do human pathologists ever collaborate with veterinary pathologists?

[johnfree7]

I have taken alot of undergrad parasitology/zoology classes and find it fascinating. Did you ever consider veterinary pathology as a career?

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[Tryonetic]

I have taken alot of undergrad parasitology/zoology classes and find it fascinating. Did you ever consider veterinary pathology as a career?

I've explored this idea just recently. At our department we have one AP vet pathologist who comes to our conference regularly and a few of our experienced pathologists will take consults from from them. These are not large scale collaborations but something is happening. However I think there is no money in this field.

 

[deleted314957]

I've explored this idea just recently. At our department we have one AP vet pathologist who comes to our conference regularly and a few of our experienced pathologists will take consults from from them. These are not large scale collaborations but something is happening. However I think there is no money in this field.

On the clin path side there can be real good money in horse country. CBC's, Chems etc. can charge thru the wazoo. Like one vet told me, "There ain't no Medicare for horses"

 

[Pingu]

It all comes down to replacement cost of the animal. Only high value animals will even get biopsies because many times it is cheaper to replace the animal than to go through a workup. A good horse is expensive to start with and then you put a lot of money into training them so it makes sense to biopsy them. Other than that and house pets, there is not a high demand for vet pathology.

 

[schrute]

If there was ever a request to perform an autopsy on Trump, I'd gladly collaborate.

 

[alpinebrook]

I've thought about this too. If there are opportunities to learn about veterinary pathology during my training (comparative pathology, I guess you would call it) that would be awesome!

 

[deleted314957]

I've thought about this too. If there are opportunities to learn about veterinary pathology during my training (comparative pathology, I guess you would call it) that would be awesome!

Residency is short enough as it is. In my opinion you have bigger fish to fry.

 

[alpinebrook]

Residency is short enough as it is. In my opinion you have bigger fish to fry.

I was thinking more in the context of working on a research project in which an animal model is being utilized. But yeah I'm sure enough is already being crammed into a few years...

 

[PrettyLadyDoc24]

I have taken alot of undergrad parasitology/zoology classes and find it fascinating. Did you ever consider veterinary pathology as a career?

As far as I know, veterinary pathology is strictly a DVM specialty. However I've been to a few local conferences where vet specialists come to talk about what they do because most animal tissue gets the same diseases. I've even known people to biopsy their dogs and bring tissue to work to study.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

It all comes down to replacement cost of the animal. Only high value animals will even get biopsies because many times it is cheaper to replace the animal than to go through a workup. A good horse is expensive to start with and then you put a lot of money into training them so it makes sense to biopsy them. Other than that and house pets, there is not a high demand for vet pathology.

This isn't true in the least.

I'm a veterinary pathologist, and there is more than adequate demand for us both in academia and industry (not to mention research and gov't), both anatomic and clinical (AP and CP are completely separate specialties in vet med because there is simply too much species variation to be able to combine them into one three-year residency, although I do know of several double-boarded veterinary pathologists who just did one and later, the other).

Biopsy, necropsy, histo, IHC, etc. are done all the time on all sorts of animals, not just special/expensive ones and certainly not just house pets. Our academic hospital takes well over a thousand necropsies a year (this year has been especially nuts, we're up to over 700 since January so far), which we usually do full histology of relevant tissues on as well as, if warranted, bacteriology, molecular diagnostics, tox, you name it. Many more biopsies a year as well, I'd have to check the log. May not seem like that much to a large human hospital - I have no idea of your caseload - but it keeps us pretty busy.

Money isn't too bad, either. Vet med usually pays pretty ****ty (starting salary for a general practitioner is about 60-65K, with 150-200k of debt) but with residency, board certification, and usually an additional research fellowship if you want to go academia/professor track under your belt, you can make anywhere from 100-150k in pathology depending on if you go into academia or industry. It's a small specialty compared to surgery and IM and such, but we tend to not have issues finding jobs anyways.

I love my job. You wouldn't believe the crazy species and lesions we see. Of course, animals get a lot of the same diseases as humans do, but it is the species variety on top of the disease variety that keeps me interested. We do everything. Companion animals, food animals, equines, exotics, wildlife, camelids, swine, avian species, laboratory animals, you name it.