Semi-Rural Pathology

[jmattwilson]

Hello, I have been reading threads on this forum for a while now and decided to make my first post. I have entertained pathology as a carrer and was wondering if anyone new what kind of need there might be for pathologists in semi-rural areas. By semi-rural I mean aggregates of small towns reasonably close to one another, with three small to large community hospitals, a regional cancer center, and lots of primary care private practices. If anyone can give me a little insight I would greatly appreciate it

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[governaitor]

It sounds like you know exactly what you want as your question is very specific. I betcha you could find that kind of action in upstate NY, New England, SE, Midwest, but probably not in the West as it is spread out there.

Duke and any large university program should all be great in the SE (UNC, USC, Georgia). Don't you think? I have no idea but that is what common sense would tell me.

 

[BamaAlum]

The type of practice that you are describing is exactly like the one my uncle has. He has contracts with 8 relatively small rural community hospitals spread out in a radius of about 60-70 miles as well as a medium sized regional hospital. He also gets various specimens from doctors' offices in the area. The community hospitals range in size from 40 beds to 150 beds. He has his own lab that processes the specimens that are brought in by couriers and he reads the slides the next day at the larger hospital. He, along with 3 other full time pathologists average about 55-60 surgical specimens per day. The down side is that he is listed as the laboratory director at most of the hospitals so he has to attend a lot of staff meetings as well as travel to each hospital about once a week to sign paperwork and other adminstrative functions. He and the other two pathologists usually pick a day and visit 3 of the labs at a time. So, they each make these rounds about once per week. It's not a bad setup.

 

[Ludy]

The strongest programs in the Southeast, at least according to pathologists I talked to here in the Midwest, are Emory, UVA, UNC, Duke and Vanderbilt. I applied to the middle three -- I thought Emory would be too hot and Vanderbilt would have made my list if I'd added one more program to ERAS, but I decided to cap it at 15. I know a third-year at UVA who raves about the path program and there are some great reviews on Scutwork for UNC's program. I've heard varying things about Duke; apparently, there were some problems with the department about 10-15 years ago, but it's stable now and very highly regarded. (And, even better, they're the only ones who offered to pay for my plane ticket and hotel .)

If you end up going into path, feel free to PM me later in the year and I'll let you know how my interviews went.