Would you ever see a PA in Pathology? If you would, what exactly would they do?
PA in Pathology?
- Thread starter Fedfan1
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Nearly every pathology department and pathology residency has at least 1 PA...they are called Pathology Assistants, and actually have a Masters degree training. There are only a handful of programs that train PAs..and they are a must have in residency...they assist on autopsies, gross pathology specimens, frozen sections. Just do a little more research, and you'll find out how valuable they are to a pathology department!
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I think there's a few older threads around about pathology assistants. Most PA's spend the majority of their time grossing, but yeah, depending on the group they work with they may work essentially as a morgue tech (some given more responsibility to cut and prepare the case for review, kinda like a resident might -- a few have supposedly started claiming to be forensic pathologists, but that's a different problem) and cut & stain frozens, or do some degree of administrative work, etc. I should add that several folks I've known with interest in being a PA really were only interested in the autopsy side, but that generally seems to be a low percentage thing for most PA's...kinda like for most pathologists. I only know one who got into previewing slides and writing up the micro reports for a doc to review -- that was not in a typical practice setting but in a small group dedicated to a specific organ, which also did a lot of related research. But that is way outside the norm in my admittedly limited experience. They can be valuable, but also relatively expensive because of the extra training, so some groups make the decision not to use them.
