Eureka! - Solution for a bright Pathology Future!

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[Enkidu]

To all the leaders on this forum who can and want to do something to make things better for the future of pathology and the community of pathologists --- please do anything to start and increase patient contact.
Pathology is the only field which technically has zero patient contact. Even radiologists have patient contact during intervention.
Think,think,think and think again ---- we are into a business---- a business of human health science. How can we work without contact with humans? It is simple logical answer to our miserable future. The only sensible and logical way to fix it is patient contact ( call it consult or counselling or second opinion or whatever you want)

Go over the report / slides with patients, give them treatment options, etc etc in short educate them and bill them for TIME. Once the patients feel, they need you ---- you will automatically will be in demand.

And then when you have the patient cornered, you can refill their hypertension drugs and check them for diabetic foot.

Edit: Why would the pathologist counsel the patient on treatment options? The future of pathology is for it to become indispensable to clinicians who are trying to treat their patients, not for pathologists to ingratiate themselves with patients by hand-delivering their diagnosis of metastatic cancer. If clinicians rely on pathologists to provide precises diagnoses that guide treatment and result in better outcomes, then pathology will thrive... No special tricks or patient contact are needed.

 

[Perry Mason]

I believe the original post was one of these:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070424052714AAgz288 ,
but I am having difficulties deciding which one.

 

[scienceguy19]

I can imagine going over cervical biopsy slides with patients.

Here are your HPV changes. You have focal severe dysplasia.

Maybe counseling isn't such a bad idea. A lot of patients don't change risky behavior if they 'feel healthy' with no symptoms. 'Look at this hyperchromatic angry looking irregular nucleus!'. Maybe microscopy will be able to convince them...

I believe the original post was one of these:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070424052714AAgz288 ,
but I am having difficulties deciding which one.

 

[lurksalot]

I do see patients quite frequently, when I perform FNAs. I usually give them a preliminary too.

My colleagues in Blood Transfusion Medicine also see patients on a regular basis.

Granted, not all of us are cytopathologists or blood bankers, but pathology is NOT technically a zero-patient interaction specialty.

 

[scienceguy19]

How about when we send bills to the patient/insurance company, there should be a asterisk next to the pathology services stating that 80% of the pathology bill went to pay LABCORP and its stock shareholders, and 20% went to the pathologist. That way, patients can know who their medical payments are going to.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

'Look at this hyperchromatic angry looking irregular nucleus!'. Maybe microscopy will be able to convince them...

👍

 

[the alchemist]

I do see patients quite frequently, when I perform FNAs. I usually give them a preliminary too.

My colleagues in Blood Transfusion Medicine also see patients on a regular basis.

Granted, not all of us are cytopathologists or blood bankers, but pathology is NOT technically a zero-patient interaction specialty.

I totally agree that path does not means zero human contact but it looks like the OP is a premed and might not have as much exposure to what pathologists do on a day-to-day basis?

I'm only a med student but when I rotated on pathology electives, I still had human contact. Actually a lot of it was with other doctors during conferences and tumor boards, etc since the pathologist is who other physicians (esp hem/onc) consult when they want a diagnosis confirmed esp if its a surgical path one - even more contact w/ different doctors than I did on other non-path rotations.

Also during transfusion med, we rounded on patients in the apheresis unit just the same as when I was on other clinical rotations (internal med, etc). Actually since we had less patients, I got to spend much more time with them (even got to chat about their lives) than I did having to pre-round on a lot of pts during IM and writing notes before AM rounds w/ the attending. And we had to write H&P notes just the same on our apheresis pts.

During cytology, we were there during fine needle aspirations (FNAs) and other procedures (mostly scoping) where bodily fluid samples were retrieved for cytologic analysis right away.

So, it all depends on what you want out of pathology but I don't think its a field w/ "zero human contact" as the OP stated. I think that the field has more issues about getting compensated properly for what they do than garnering more human contact.

 

[the alchemist]

To all the leaders on this forum who can and want to do something to make things better for the future of pathology and the community of pathologists --- please do anything to start and increase patient contact.
Pathology is the only field which technically has zero patient contact. Even radiologists have patient contact during intervention.
Think,think,think and think again ---- we are into a business---- a business of human health science. How can we work without contact with humans? It is simple logical answer to our miserable future. The only sensible and logical way to fix it is patient contact ( call it consult or counselling or second opinion or whatever you want)

Go over the report / slides with patients, give them treatment options, etc etc in short educate them and bill them for TIME. Once the patients feel, they need you ---- you will automatically will be in demand.

pathologists are not the ones to go over treatment options - that would be the patient's primary or in other cases, surgeon. after residency and taking Step 3, many pathologists may no longer know what the most current treatment options (medical or surgical) are for the specific condition the pt has so its best that the person to go over that w/ the patient, is the person who specializes in the field of treatment (eg - surgeon if the pt will need surgery, generalist if its a medical tx, etc). those people already are the ones who go over the report and give pts their tx options (i think most pts might not really care to see the slides esp if they don't have the background to know what their looking at, even non-pathologists exc for hem/onc don't seem that interested in looking at the slides - just reading the final report)

 

[yaah]

There's a big difference between "patient contact" and "human contact." I don't see patients, but I am constantly interacting with others, just as much as clinicians. The same skills that help clinicians also help pathologists be better at what they do. Someone who never talks and can't communicate might make a bad internist, but they also likely make for a bad pathologist. The only way to really get away with it is to be a very well regarded and respected super specialist who is inside their own little bubble, but even then people always want your expertise on things.

 

[the alchemist]

There's a big difference between "patient contact" and "human contact." I don't see patients, but I am constantly interacting with others, just as much as clinicians. The same skills that help clinicians also help pathologists be better at what they do. Someone who never talks and can't communicate might make a bad internist, but they also likely make for a bad pathologist. The only way to really get away with it is to be a very well regarded and respected super specialist who is inside their own little bubble, but even then people always want your expertise on things.

i agree w/ yaah. pathologists have a lot of "human contact" during the day since they many times work in teams where they can be consulted by surgeons, hem/onc, etc dep on their area of specialization or participate in conference/tumor boards/M&Ms. pathologists also consult w/ each other a lot more than many other IM fields i rotated in - many times, they have an unknowns/interesting/difficult cases signout (after they've previewed alone or with their residents earlier in the day) at the multi-headed scope where everyone can chime in their opinions and discuss in a collegial fashion (unless they're the full of themselves type which i rarely encountered but every field has them). even though pathologists may not have a lot of "patient contact", i think they actually have a great deal of the daily human kind w/ other doctors (non-pathologists) and/or pathologists and also their residents.

 

[Enkidu]

There's a big difference between "patient contact" and "human contact." I don't see patients, but I am constantly interacting with others, just as much as clinicians. The same skills that help clinicians also help pathologists be better at what they do. Someone who never talks and can't communicate might make a bad internist, but they also likely make for a bad pathologist. The only way to really get away with it is to be a very well regarded and respected super specialist who is inside their own little bubble, but even then people always want your expertise on things.

Yeah, I've always wondered why some people make such a big deal about patient contact. Patients are just sick people that you don't know and can't relate too. I prefer to have contact with people who are like me... like other scientists and physicians.