Somebody explain to me why pathology is a required class

[MacGyver]

Personally I think its all BS filler material because med schools couldnt find something more suitable to put in there.

I say drop path, and spend more time on pathophysiology.

To me it comes down to this hypothetical scenario:

Take an average doctor (non-pathologist) and then magically remove any exposure he's had to pathology. I guarantee you cant tell any difference in his clinical outcomes or his knowledge base as it pertains to his specialty.

That statement is not true of any of hte other courses.

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[Barry Otter]

How do you differentiate pathophysiology from pathology? For me, so much of pathology encompasses the pathophysiologic process.

 

[OHMAN0125]

How do you differentiate pathophysiology from pathology? For me, so much of pathology encompasses the pathophysiologic process.

Exactly, I dont understand what you mean by wanting to drop pathology. Pathology is the basis of disease and pathophysiology. I don't think anyone can deny how important Robins: Pathologic Basis of Disease is.

 

[Law2Doc]

Exactly, I dont understand what you mean by wanting to drop pathology. Pathology is the basis of disease and pathophysiology. I don't think anyone can deny how important Robins: Pathologic Basis of Disease is.

It must be important- It's the biggest book I own.

 

[PreMedAdAG]

are you kidding me???? your'e joking right??

dropping pathology would be like THE dumbest thing ever! It's tangible proof to diagnosis.

I don't get what you're talking about at all

 

[OHMAN0125]

It must be important- It's the biggest book I own.

Me too, but i try to read more Baby Robbins and use that sucker as reference

 

[DoctorFunk]

If the motion to drop path goes through, I think we should just go ahead and dump mandatory internal med rotations as well. Greater than 50% of medical graduates go into non-IM specialties...why the heck should they have to learn all that basic medicine?

 

[Law2Doc]

If the motion to drop path goes through, I think we should just go ahead and dump mandatory internal med rotations as well. Greater than 50% of medical graduates go into non-IM specialties...why the heck should they have to learn all that basic medicine?

Maybe we should just start residencies after college and learn on the job. That would cut away all the chaff even better.

 

[Taus]

don't worry...our extensive knowledge of biochem and molecular will carry us through the wards...screw those fancy sounding diseases and all those things that can go wrong w/ the normal physiology that we learned....


Seriously though....I'm assuming you consider "Path" to just be going to the lab and looking at specimens..... and you consider disease processes to be another class?

 

[ANCAdoc]

There are alot of things in pathology that can be streamlined a bit. For example, my school dropped path lab and being able to identify diseased tissue because as physicians we will simply never do that (outside of the 0.5% that become pathologists).

Sometimes I think Path gets a little to detailed for the avg MD. Knowing precise biochemical pathways is NOT essential to the practice of medicine. Ask your local family practice doc what they remember.

At my school, the medicine course and pathology course are very similar. The path guy goes alot into medicine and I can read a breif synopsis of the pathology of a disease in medicine (via handounts). Pathology is taught differently at each place, but here I think medicine is good enough. However, it is nice to see everything twice.

 

[AmericanIMG]

i think what MacGuyver is saying is that instead of a path course, they should integrate phys and path. this makes quite a bit of sense actually.

 

[Law2Doc]

i think what MacGuyver is saying is that instead of a path course, they should integrate phys and path. this makes quite a bit of sense actually.

Some schools already do this. But however you package it, it's still Robbins.

 

[jocg27]

Maybe we should just start residencies after college and learn on the job. That would cut away all the chaff even better.

Of course who needs college, really? most of the world doesn't even have our idea of college, they start medicine right away in a university setting. maybe just go straight high school -> residency?

 

[Law2Doc]

Of course who needs college, really? most of the world doesn't even have our idea of college, they start medicine right away in a university setting. maybe just go straight high school -> residency?

Honestly what do you really learn in high school, or grade school for that matter -- I say just go from diapers to residency. Think of the advantages if you go into pediatrics, and can relate one on one with your patients. You'll be the coolest dude in the playground.

 

[dopaminophile]

Awe heck... the pathogenesis of this discussion will inevitably take us to babies sitting on patients' bellies with syringes, scalpels, and long white coats.

Peek-a-boo! I see an appendix!!!

Seriously though... definitely be able to ride a tricycle before you prescribe tricyclic antidepressants, it's a matter of professionalism.

 

[Law2Doc]

Awe heck... the pathogenesis of this discussion will inevitably take us to babies sitting on patients' bellies with syringes, scalpels, and long white coats.

Peek-a-boo! I see an appendix!!!

Seriously though... definitely be able to ride a tricycle before you prescribe tricyclic antidepressants, it's a matter of professionalism.

As long as pharmacists can read perscriptions in crayon, you are set.

 

[MacGyver]

You guys didnt read my post very carefully did you?

NOtice I said to KEEP pathophysiology and get rid of path.

Path = slide work.

Obviously I'm not talking about dropping the mechanisms of disease. Thats extremely important and is covered in pathophys. But knowing what the microcellular strucutre of a cirrhotic liver looks like is absolutely irrelevant to every field except pathology. Hell GI docs dont even need to know what it looks like under the scope.

How often do GI docs need to know what an H PYlori infected antrum looks like? Answer: NEVER

How often do neurologists need to know what the cells in oligodendroglioma look like? Answer: NEVER

How often do cardiologists need to know what the myofibrils look like in an MI? Answer: NEVER

KNowing what the slides look like has absolutely no bearing on these doctors' ability to do their jobs.

 

[Gimlet]

You guys didnt read my post very carefully did you?

No need to be snotty, Mac. Since when does...

Path = slide work.

?

Sounds like you're just using a fooked-up definition of the word:

Pathology (from Dictionary.com)
–noun, plural -gies.
1. the science or the study of the origin, nature, and course of diseases.
2. the conditions and processes of a disease.
3. any deviation from a healthy, normal, or efficient condition.

Your pathophysiology = everybody else's definiton of pathology. I don't know what your school's path course is like, but ours has zero slide work. On our test today, there were maybe 3 microscopic pictures involved (out of 50 questions), and you didn't necessarily need to be able to identify the disease based on the slide, since you can deduce the answer from the question stem. Or are you talking about Pathology rotations 3rd/4th year?

 

[Barry Otter]

Dude...

Peripheral smears.

A lot of gyns read their own Paps and colpos.

A surgeon should be familiar at least with gross pathology.

Derms use path all the time.

 

[vtucci]

Pathology I think is great.

If you are going to drop something, I think anatomy and biochem as it is taught many places can be dropped. memorizing thousands of names without context, hardly helpful (granted, the terms should be incorporated in path or pathophysio). Likewise, do we really need to remember each step in the TCA cycle?

 

[RaaMD]

dood, are you serious?

 

[getunconcsious]

Pathology I think is great.

If you are going to drop something, I think anatomy and biochem as it is taught many places can be dropped. memorizing thousands of names without context, hardly helpful (granted, the terms should be incorporated in path or pathophysio). Likewise, do we really need to remember each step in the TCA cycle?

I agree, get rid of anatomy and/or biochemistry, but pathology is like only THE most important course of the basic science years!

The OP is nuts unless I guess for some reason his school splits up pathology and pathophysiology....in my school as I assume at most they are one in the same class.

 

[braluk]

lol im doing med biochem now and god i cannot agree with u more, but then again every course has its own clinical correlations, and the proper way to diagnose and treat is to know those pathways, but regardless, i still bet u ill be looking through the textbooks even when im a doctor cause theres no way i would still remember any of that stuff

 

[Ypo.]

We have an intro path course in first year. It was kind of helpful but all it does is introduce concepts that you will go over in greater detail in year 2.

I would prefer our school offer us an embrology class (currently they do not).

 

[Droopy Snoopy]

Dude, I dare you to stand up in class and ask your path professor this question.

 

[Discobolus]

I did a GI rotation last month and they have a weekly conference where a pathologist essentially pimps (and lectures) the fellows for on hour on GI pathology. The fellows hate it at first and are usually doing good just to know what organ they are in, but the 3rd year fellows were actually pretty decent at reading the slides.

 

[dopaminophile]

I think a lot of people are confusing histology and pathology. Pathology is as defined above... histology is with the slides. While I understand why you hate histology, both it and pathology are fundamental to the study and diagnosis of human disease. Both are also used in several specialties, but most importantly they are used in Pathology... that oft forgotten specialty.

Don't be silly... histology, pathology, histopathology, pathophysiology, etc... are all important to becoming a competent and proficient physician with at least some exposure to all areas of medicine. Otherwise they'd just call you a GI technologist or Cardiothoracic Surgeon apprentice.

 

[Dunce]

What an absurd idea for a thread

 

[akpete]

I would prefer our school offer us an embrology class (currently they do not).

 

[DarksideAllstar]

You guys didnt read my post very carefully did you?

NOtice I said to KEEP pathophysiology and get rid of path.

Path = slide work.

Obviously I'm not talking about dropping the mechanisms of disease. Thats extremely important and is covered in pathophys. But knowing what the microcellular strucutre of a cirrhotic liver looks like is absolutely irrelevant to every field except pathology. Hell GI docs dont even need to know what it looks like under the scope.

How often do GI docs need to know what an H PYlori infected antrum looks like? Answer: NEVER

How often do neurologists need to know what the cells in oligodendroglioma look like? Answer: NEVER

How often do cardiologists need to know what the myofibrils look like in an MI? Answer: NEVER

KNowing what the slides look like has absolutely no bearing on these doctors' ability to do their jobs.

Have you ever rotated through any of these services? Not only do the clinicians come down to look at slides (and can actually start identifying things), but typically their board examinations will have H&E or immunoperoxidase slides on them. This goes for everyone of the fields that you mentioned, and includes others such as hem/onc and urology. Having a general idea of what you're treating looks like under a microscope, the criteria used for microscopic diagnosis, and what the differential is will be extremely useful to you as a clinician, both in understanding the limitations of pathology and how you formulate your treatment plan based on what is seen. A lot of physicians and surgeons can gain enough experience looking at slides to have a reasonable dialogue with the pathologists about the clinical scenario and how it correlates with the micro findings.

As an aside, our school intergrated pathophys and pathology. Not sure how you can teach one or the other in isolation

 

[piu]

if he's talking about getting rid of histology i am all for it. but pathology is important.