Pathology pros and cons

[appletrees]

Thinking of Pathology.
How much reading/studying is there in Pathology?
What's the schedule like?
Is there call?
What did you love and hate about the field?
what do you wish you knew before you started?
Is it 4 years? Do you have to do fellowship to get a job?
What's the job market like?
Would you have chosen this all over again if you had to apply now?

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[Dral]

Close your eyes and click on any thread in this forum. You're likely to get the answers to your 7th and 8th questions.

 

[mlw03]

Do a little searching through this forum. Pretty much every question you ask has been answered, and as noted above, the job situation is a regular and favourite topic around here.

To answer your last question: yes, I'd do it again, but I'm in forensic path, which is quite different than diagnostic surg path that most folks do in either community or academic settings. If I couldn't do forensic path, no, I would not want to be a general diagnostic pathologist because I wouldn't want to be at a microscope all day.

 

[Dral]

I'm a dermpath fellow (from the Derm side). I can say one pro: somewhat controlling your shedule throughout the day. You can't really control what cases come in, but you can control the rate you read them to some extent. However, I think this is much more controllable in an academic setting where the case load isn't typically as demanding as private/group practice.

In clinical medicine, you are at the mercy of your patients' schedules. In clinic, as scheduled patients come in, I have to go see them.

On the dermpath side, if my case load isn't super crazy I can either read a tray of slides when they come in...or I can go grab a cup of coffee and work on them a little later...or I can make a phone call if I need to...or I can catch up on research projects. It's surprising how nice that can be after seeing patients like crazy from 8 to 5 for three years of residency.