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Hi all,
great forum with some flamboyant and entertaining personalities. I'm a long-time lurker/first-time poster 3rd year who has recently developed an interest in pathology. Many of my motivations seem relatively familiar: interest in doing something that directly translates science into medicine, like the "expert diagnostician" feel of path, enjoy the visual cryptography of surg path, no rabid desire for long-term longitudinal patient relations.
That said, I'm also really interested in path b/c it seems like pathology really has the potential to be at the vanguard of genomic medicine. I really think that pathology is sort of on the precipice of major change, with the convergence of a number of technologies:
1) Digital imaging - while not exactly commonly, virtual slide technology is already in place and available commercially. I'm not talking about cumbersome telepathology setups with what amounts to remote-controlled microscopes and image transmission over IP, but rather true virtual slides, with very high-resolution slide capture and storage and familiar, intuitive interface. You may be interested to check out:
http://216.204.84.52
for some sense of how this technology might work.
2) Molecular diagnostics/mol imaging - obviously these are burgeoning fields with tons of promise. This is one of the reasons I'm really interested in path: finally seeing some of the promise of the human genome project come to fruition in terms of clinical applicability.
Ultimately, I think what you'll see is that while traditional surg path will continue to exist for some time, it will become much more integrated with genomic technologies, such that you'll see things like in situ oncogene expression analysis, cell surface receptors, etc overlayed on the digital slide. Ultimately,all of this information will be simultaneously available and displayed in a coherent fashion, versus its current fragmented state. I like to imagine that it will be like that scene from "Minority Report" where Tom Cruise rapidly parses all of this information from disparate sources by moving around all sorts of data with his hands on this nifty multi-functional display. Of course, it's a bit hard to imagine pathologists dropping in from helicopters for any relevant purpose, so obviously this analogy only extends so far... 😉
Does anyone else feel the same? That AP/CP divisions are a bit archaic and artificial, and particularly with molecular diagnostics/genomic medicine becoming (relatively) commonplace, things are going to change rapidly? This is honestly one of the big draws to path for me right now, the opportunity to be involved with much of the emerging molecular technology as it makes its transition into clinical relevance.
On another note, do you guys ever wonder about Interventional Pathology? I mean, I've read and enjoyed the extensive ACM thread, so I understand that a number of the frequent posters here have little interest in treating patients per se, but would you be interested in some sort of therapeutic stuff in the context of genomic medicine, for example? I read an interesting commentary about the possibility of Interventional Path here:
http://www.labinfotech.org/LIS2005/commentary20041209.php
[Of course, any sort of proposed Interventional Pathology would probably require an internship or previous residency, which is likely to get the big 👎 here.]
Anyway, just some thoughts. I really do think path may be the way to go for me, but I am really interested in people's perceptions of how the field may change (I believe dramatically) in our practice lifetimes.
cheers,
cartwright
P.S. Any golf fans here? Pretty wild Open!
great forum with some flamboyant and entertaining personalities. I'm a long-time lurker/first-time poster 3rd year who has recently developed an interest in pathology. Many of my motivations seem relatively familiar: interest in doing something that directly translates science into medicine, like the "expert diagnostician" feel of path, enjoy the visual cryptography of surg path, no rabid desire for long-term longitudinal patient relations.
That said, I'm also really interested in path b/c it seems like pathology really has the potential to be at the vanguard of genomic medicine. I really think that pathology is sort of on the precipice of major change, with the convergence of a number of technologies:
1) Digital imaging - while not exactly commonly, virtual slide technology is already in place and available commercially. I'm not talking about cumbersome telepathology setups with what amounts to remote-controlled microscopes and image transmission over IP, but rather true virtual slides, with very high-resolution slide capture and storage and familiar, intuitive interface. You may be interested to check out:
http://216.204.84.52
for some sense of how this technology might work.
2) Molecular diagnostics/mol imaging - obviously these are burgeoning fields with tons of promise. This is one of the reasons I'm really interested in path: finally seeing some of the promise of the human genome project come to fruition in terms of clinical applicability.
Ultimately, I think what you'll see is that while traditional surg path will continue to exist for some time, it will become much more integrated with genomic technologies, such that you'll see things like in situ oncogene expression analysis, cell surface receptors, etc overlayed on the digital slide. Ultimately,all of this information will be simultaneously available and displayed in a coherent fashion, versus its current fragmented state. I like to imagine that it will be like that scene from "Minority Report" where Tom Cruise rapidly parses all of this information from disparate sources by moving around all sorts of data with his hands on this nifty multi-functional display. Of course, it's a bit hard to imagine pathologists dropping in from helicopters for any relevant purpose, so obviously this analogy only extends so far... 😉
Does anyone else feel the same? That AP/CP divisions are a bit archaic and artificial, and particularly with molecular diagnostics/genomic medicine becoming (relatively) commonplace, things are going to change rapidly? This is honestly one of the big draws to path for me right now, the opportunity to be involved with much of the emerging molecular technology as it makes its transition into clinical relevance.
On another note, do you guys ever wonder about Interventional Pathology? I mean, I've read and enjoyed the extensive ACM thread, so I understand that a number of the frequent posters here have little interest in treating patients per se, but would you be interested in some sort of therapeutic stuff in the context of genomic medicine, for example? I read an interesting commentary about the possibility of Interventional Path here:
http://www.labinfotech.org/LIS2005/commentary20041209.php
[Of course, any sort of proposed Interventional Pathology would probably require an internship or previous residency, which is likely to get the big 👎 here.]
Anyway, just some thoughts. I really do think path may be the way to go for me, but I am really interested in people's perceptions of how the field may change (I believe dramatically) in our practice lifetimes.
cheers,
cartwright
P.S. Any golf fans here? Pretty wild Open!
