Well put Yaah.
I didn't imply that sub-par work was tolerated by pathology faculty.
However, the whole mentality of med school doesn't penetrate deep in the work of pathology. What I refer to by "mentality of med school" is this: the main motivation of doing work (especially scut work) in the hospital (especially on internal medicine) is the fear that you're evaluations will suffer if you don't do them. There are so many of my classmates who actually offer to transport X-ray films for residents with a big smiles on their faces. There are students who yearn to write that NPO order in the chart. There are students who feel obligated to take on that extra patient at 3 a.m. on a call night (sure, students like me just go to bed and are content on waking up 2 hours later to pre-round). Believe it or not, there are students at my school who *volunteer* to give talks on random topics just to get extra brownie points on evaluations. Some students will refuse to go home thinking, "the resident will think I'm weak if I go home." Instead, they will ask incessantly, "Are you suuuuure there isn't anything else I could do to help you out." All this **** would not be done if there was no evaluation system which further belies the shallow nature of the med student mind. Oh yeah, I almost forgot...random sexual flavors.
Now, from talking to my friends who have done pathology rotations and have actually matched at awesome programs, that kind of pressure just isn't there. It's all about showing up to work, doing the assigned work enthusiastically because you like it, finishing the work, and going home. Everything in life is relative and pathology is a better world.