*important* questions to ask a pathology program

Check out Iserson's Guide Into Getting Into Residency of Your Choice and First Aid for The Match for some good questions to pop.

Ones that I've heard of or been told about include:

- Faculty Turnover
- Resident Drop Outs
- Direction the Chairman is taking the dept.
- Preview time for slides before sign out
- Research Req.
- Conference schedule
- Who talkes at conferences (residents mostly or also a good number of faculty)
and so forth...

Keep the Mafia going strong boss!

GD

-Work hours on surgical path. (ask multiple people and see what you get)

-Ask the residents straight out if they are personally happy with the program. Try to do this individually if you can. And, again ask as many as you can. It has always been my thought if the current residents are not happy, you will not be either no matter how prestigious the program.

-Ask how much time you spend away from all your classmates at other hospitals. I only do one month a year away and that time sucks in my opinion.

-Find out how many autopsies they do a year. You may be happy or sad at this number depending on whether you like doing them.

-Ask how many hours a week the residents get actual lectures, not just what is on their "posted" schedule. Ask that question to staff and residents and see if what they say agrees.

-# of cases per resident on surg path is more important than total # of cases. (as long as the total number is not some outrageously low number)

If I think of anything else I will add.

Happy hunting, hehe.

Hey Ririri...ain't ya got that damn Step 2 coming up? GO HIT THE BOOKS my hizzo

Good luck on the exam...talk to you later

GD

Maybe this link will work...

this is 30 path q's you can ask a program. (.pdf file, I posted it a long time ago.)


http://forums.studentdoctor.net/attachment.php?s=&postid=417709

Mindy

Originally posted by Mindy
Maybe this link will work...

this is 30 path q's you can ask a program. (.pdf file, I posted it a long time ago.)


http://forums.studentdoctor.net/attachment.php?s=&postid=417709

Mindy

Click to expand...

Hmm.. it's giving me a "cannot find server" message. Any chance you could post it again?

ac

I strongly agree with what the Great Pumpkin wrote. Ask tons of questions of the residents. They are your true source of information. First year residents are great to ask questions of because they will be where you are next year. If you don't get to see any first years, ask to.

One of the best questions I think you can ask of the residents is "If you could change something about your program, what would it be?". Honest answers will help you out a lot. Just remember, every program has its problems no matter how good it looks during the interview.

Another thing is, you will meet with several different faculty during your interview day. Inevitably, you will use up all your good questions in the beginning. Don't be afraid to ask other interviewers the same questions and see if their response match up to those of others.

I would add to research, not only what the reqs are but also what are the opportunities and what have residents done in the past research-wise.

You might want to ask if they have a pathology assistant for help in the gross room. Having one makes a big difference in workflow and can really help the residents out. For example we have a PA who grosses in most of the biopsies and can cut frozen sections in a pinch. This really takes the pressure off of us sometimes.

yeah. that can make a big difference. The two programs where I did rotations had different philosophies. The first had the resident gross everything from big guts to little ditzels of skin. Then they got a "slide-reading" day. One extra day between gross and signout to go over all their cases. The other program had a PhD and a PA do the grossing of the smaller stuff, while the residents grossed the bigger stuff. The residents read all the cases, but the slides came on different days. I had heard that the single most valuable skill that a resident can acquire is the ability to gross. I don't know the citation but from what I recall it was based on a survey that was recently published regarding what practices are looking for when hiring new staff.

Hope that helps,

GeoLeoX

PAs are very valuable assets to a residency. Not only do they often gross the smaller biopsies (which, after doing a few, there is indeed minimal educational value in the grossing aspect) but they also can help teach you how to do larger specimens. In fact, our PAs invaluable in helping us figure out the really weird specimens you get like facectomies and pelvic exents. At my program, we work at 5 hospitals at different points during the residency; some have PA coverage and some don't. We get plently of experience grossing biopsies but then we also get the benefit of not having to at other times.

Focus on the question, "what exactly do residents do?" Do residents learn by primarily doing what the attending would be doing as much as is legal or by primarily observing, reading, or listening to a lecture (or, god forbid, being a secretary or PA)?

3 must-ask questions:
1. Do residents write/dictate reports, final diagnoses, and comments that attendings sign out? Not just the gross. Not just autopsies.
2. Do attendings sign out reports that residents did NOT write? What percentage and in what areas?
3. Do tasks/conferences/calls from techs/docs go to attendings directly without going through the resident? What percentage and in what areas?

Another way to ask these types of questions is: how exactly do the resident's clinical duties differ from the attending's? The best answer is "the attending presses the sign button when I'm done."