Any Fellow PSFs Out There?

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tco

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I just started mine this month. How are your rotations going?

Surg path is my first. Grossing isn't much fun, but apparently gets better. Looking at the specimens under the scope is fantastic.

If you're reading anything in the evenings, what is it? I feel like I'm wasting so much time and not learning anything after I leave the hospital...

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Yep. I'm at U of Missouri-Columbia. I'm on Blood Bank this month, though, so I can't help you much with what to read as my reading is obviously all transfusion related. I'll be on surg next month. The surg advice I've been given is to read the Robbins and/or Rosai sections on whatever interesting case you saw that day.

Anyway, remember that you have to take a break too, sometimes. I've been aiming for 2 hours of reading a night and not a minute more.
 
I completed the SLU PSF in 2009-2010; I just started 4th year, and miss my desk, scope and slides every day. :oops:

As far as reading, most of mine was directly related to my cases--I would try to gather as much info about the diagnosis as possible, but also try to delve into DDx and why it was X instead of Y. This is how I learn best, as rote, no-context memorization is very low-yield for my brain. Residents (our PSFs function as PGY-1s, but do 11 months of AP) are responsible for putting together all AP conferences, so there was more than enough material to prepare in that regard, whether I was on Surg path, Autopsy, or Peds path. I did read most of Moldavi's book as I went, but didn't really get into any of the Big Guns (Rosai, Silverberg, etc.)

Going into application season, I feel well-prepared to hit the ground running next July, regardless of where I end up. I hope both of you have as rich an experience as I did.
 
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I've been on surgpath for 2 weeks. I've spent nearly all my time in the gross room and doing frozens. This is my first call weekend so I wanted to get up to speed with all the technical stuff first. I haven't done any reading in the evenings yet but my attendings are putting some pressure on me to start. But I'm tired when I'm getting home at 7 after 10 hours of grossing...
 
I'm having a rough time figuring out what to research during my PSF. I'm interested in a number of fields, and have thought about finding the field that I think is the combination of the most interesting and most competitive. Any thoughts?
 
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I really didn't like my Surg Path rotation, but I'm LOVING Heme. Is this normal?

Also, are there programs where being a hematopathologist is a full time job? Here at WVU, our hemepaths sign out on surg path cases more often than they actually do heme.
 
At SLU, we have 2 Hemepath faculty, one of whom was a recently-graduated fellow during my PSF. While the junior faculty member did some weeks of surg path service (her choice), the more senior faculty member spends all of his clinical time in heme/flow/molecular practice covering both adult and peds hospitals. However, every week he teaches at micro and gross surg path conferences. N=1, but these opportunities can and do exist.
 
Heme and neuro are two pretty common subspecialties in which the average surgical pathologist may not be as comfortable. From what I've seen they are two of the most common for which jobs are available to do "solely" that. Still, I think most jobs are likely to want you to do more than just heme. The larger the practice or academic center, the more likely that the number of specimens will justify your being able to do solely one thing such as heme (+/- research). But keep in mind that the more you do solely one thing, the more you're isolating yourself into only being able to take similar jobs in the future; I think it's very difficult, though not impossible, to do one thing only for 5+ years and then feel comfortable going back to general surg path.
 
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