Clinical vs anatomic pathology residencies & beyond

[Ardently.cowenby]

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Hi everyone,

I am a current 3rd year veterinary student and beginning the search for external rotations for fourth year and therefore beginning to look into my options for residency. I am very interested in both clinical and anatomic pathology. I have more experience with anatomic pathology but have enjoyed my limited experience in clinical pathology.

I have heard from the majority of my anatomic path profs that they recommend doing a combined residency/PhD program for anatomic due to the nature of jobs available at this time. Is the same true for clinical pathology? I am hoping to do some externals where I can do anatomic and clinical pathology so I can figure my life out a bit more but any advice is welcome!

Thank you in advance 🙂

 

[JaynaAli]

No, that’s a big difference between the two. Clinical pathology has been trending away from combined programs for a while. There are still combined programs available and those are likely the best option for someone who thinks they to make their career in academia (especially if planning to be a full professor or interested in research), but there are also many strong residency programs that are residency only with no combined degree. There are many clinical track academia jobs in clin path where you don’t need a PhD, these are getting more and more popular over the last 10 or so years. And a PhD is of very little value in clin path outside of academia so imo is not necessary if you think you may want to do diagnostics such as working for Antech, Idexx, or Zoetis.

 

[Ardently.cowenby]

No, that’s a big difference between the two. Clinical pathology has been trending away from combined programs for a while. There are still combined programs available and those are likely the best option for someone who thinks they to make their career in academia (especially if planning to be a full professor or interested in research), but there are also many strong residency programs that are residency only with no combined degree. There are many clinical track academia jobs in clin path where you don’t need a PhD, these are getting more and more popular over the last 10 or so years. And a PhD is of very little value in clin path outside of academia so imo is not necessary if you think you may want to do diagnostics such as working for Antech, Idexx, or Zoetis.

Thank you for the insight! I am particularly interested in becoming a professor but an ideal role for me (regardless of AP vs CP) would be one that is mostly diagnostic work, some teaching and then assisting in research versus having my own research lab. I feel like a PhD would make me a more competitive candidate but not necessarily for the position- would you agree with that assessment?

 

[JaynaAli]

Thank you for the insight! I am particularly interested in becoming a professor but an ideal role for me (regardless of AP vs CP) would be one that is mostly diagnostic work, some teaching and then assisting in research versus having my own research lab. I feel like a PhD would make me a more competitive candidate but not necessarily for the position- would you agree with that assessment?

Yes. It sounds like you want more of a clinical track role if you’re wanting to just do a small amount of research and mostly teach and/or do diagnostic work for the school. You can easily find this type of job in clin path without an advanced degree (in general academia is really hurting for pathologists, largely because the work life balance and pay is often much better in diagnostics) but having one would probably make you more desirable to an academic institution.

 

[Ardently.cowenby]

Yes. It sounds like you want more of a clinical track role if you’re wanting to just do a small amount of research and mostly teach and/or do diagnostic work for the school. You can easily find this type of job in clin path without an advanced degree (in general academia is really hurting for pathologists, largely because the work life balance and pay is often much better in diagnostics) but having one would probably make you more desirable to an academic institution.

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond, I really appreciate your insight!

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

AP faculty here. Yeah there is still often an expectation (or at least a preference) in AP for faculty to have a PhD on board. Check out any vet school faculty listing and you will see a lot of DVM, DACVP, PhD titles, and not just on the professors that are heavy into research. I have mixed feelings about it. I did my PhD after my residency, somewhat reluctantly, because I wanted to be faculty. I say somewhat reluctantly because even though I enjoy research, it always bugged me that I had to spend all these additional years when such an expectation is not as common in other specialties (plus I also did not want to be running a lab - collaborative research is fine by me).

I suspect the reasoning behind academia wanting the PhD is largely because institutions are judged on their research competitiveness, and research grants are obviously far more accessible to people with PhDs. Plus anatomics tend to be more involved on the research side (not that CPs aren't, its just that more basic science researchers do animal models with histopath than they do cytologies/chems/cbcs etc, so they come to the anatomics). That being said, there are definitly non-PhD jobs available to in industry. Depends where you want to end up.

To be fair it worked out - my current job is primarily teaching, with sides of diagnostics and some collaborative research now and then. I'll probably move on to a diagnostics-heavy industry job in the future once I finish PSLF here.

My best advice is to look at the credentials and CVs of people who are in the jobs that you want. Especially the newer/younger ones. See what people are being hired with and use that as a guide.

 

[Ardently.cowenby]

AP faculty here. Yeah there is still often an expectation (or at least a preference) in AP for faculty to have a PhD on board. Check out any vet school faculty listing and you will see a lot of DVM, DACVP, PhD titles, and not just on the professors that are heavy into research. I have mixed feelings about it. I did my PhD after my residency, somewhat reluctantly, because I wanted to be faculty. I say somewhat reluctantly because even though I enjoy research, it always bugged me that I had to spend all these additional years when such an expectation is not as common in other specialties (plus I also did not want to be running a lab - collaborative research is fine by me).

I suspect the reasoning behind academia wanting the PhD is largely because institutions are judged on their research competitiveness, and research grants are obviously far more accessible to people with PhDs. Plus anatomics tend to be more involved on the research side (not that CPs aren't, its just that more basic science researchers do animal models with histopath than they do cytologies/chems/cbcs etc, so they come to the anatomics). That being said, there are definitly non-PhD jobs available to in industry. Depends where you want to end up.

To be fair it worked out - my current job is primarily teaching, with sides of diagnostics and some collaborative research now and then. I'll probably move on to a diagnostics-heavy industry job in the future once I finish PSLF here.

My best advice is to look at the credentials and CVs of people who are in the jobs that you want. Especially the newer/younger ones. See what people are being hired with and use that as a guide.

Thank you, this is consistent with what I have heard from all the AP faculty I have spoken with. I'm currently looking at combined AP residency/PhD programs. I have similar feelings to what you described in regards to research. I do enjoy it, I just would like to stop being in school eventually ...

I really appreciate you taking the time to respond!