Top 10 general surgical pathology fellowships?

[Absidia]

Both; first phase as a soft tissue person at AFIP; second and current phase at Hopkins more in GI; both phases very successful! A Medline search more or less tells the story.

Interestingly, Goldblum at Cleveland Clinic has the same areas of expertise (GI and ST).

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[oldfatman]

Blue kool aid. It was delicious.

I'm glad you enjoyed the kool aid, but I'm trying to teach you something those Mayo boys and girls apparently haven't.

You haven't pulled the trigger yet. You haven't made a terrible (but correct) diagnosis and issued a report that will destroy a patient and their family. We don't know yet if you can do this or you'll be running up and down the hall with a tray of slides in your hands trying to get a "concurrence" on something that's obvious but terrible. I've seen tough pathologists and I've seen wimps. Some of the wimps were from top tier programs.

Going back to the reputation of Mayo, well, as you soon will see the surgeons and clinicians know virtually nothing about surgical pathology. Mayo, JHop, the Harvard programs, and a few others all have fabulous marketing programs. Except for a few stars, their actual talent is the same as you'll find anywhere else.

 

[oldfatman]

Interestingly, Goldblum at Cleveland Clinic has the same areas of expertise (GI and ST).

They're supposedly close friends. But she is much better at public speaking than he is.

 

[2121115]

Except for a few stars, their actual talent is the same as you'll find anywhere else..[/B][/I]

^^^ This ^^^

 

[Ruination]

who cares.

 

[KeratinPearls]

who cares.

Best post ever.

 

[zao275]

not that I disagree with the list but Columbia University has a great surgPath fellowship.

I presume you are speaking of Columbia in New York? They don't have surg path fellowship listed on their website that I can see: http://pathology.columbia.edu/education/residency/. Does the program have a website?

 

[sbp]

I presume you are speaking of Columbia in New York? They don't have surg path fellowship listed on their website that I can see: http://pathology.columbia.edu/education/residency/. Does the program have a website?

they have a fellowship but I don' think it is posted on the website. It is not an ACGME funded fellowship, it is a junior attending type position. you sign out cases and frozens, there are two spots that often go to internal candidates. My experience with the fellowship has been great, I think it is a great transition year.

 

[TypicalTuesday]

I am 4 weeks from finishing my surg path fellowship. AP/CP trained at a program with a decent volume and good exposure to a variety of neoplastic/non-neoplastic disease.

Here are the things that I would look for if one were inclined to do a surg path fellowship:

- Independence: I don't think that this can be overstated enough. Pathology is probably one of the only fields in medicine where you can pretty much go through your entire residency and make few, if any critical decisions. You want a fellowship where at the very least you can sign out frozen sections and issue prelim diagnoses to clinicians (i.e. hot seat rotation). Ideally, it would be great to actually sign out cases and develop some degree of confidence. Doing it all over again I would probably prefer the Hopkins model for my surg path fellowship.

- Flexibility: This year should help you "fill in" the gaps of your residency training. Electives are a valuable time to gain extra exposure in areas that you feel particularly weak in.

- Limited grossing: As long as you trained at a moderately busy program, you should feel comfortable with almost every type of specimen. If your residency program was weak in specimen complexity, then I don't think that this applies to you.

- Access to faculty consult material: Many of our faculty receive personal consults which really enhances the experience. You get to see difficult cases and learn how to approach them.

- Variety: I personally like the fact that we see a variety of neoplastic and non-neoplastic disease and that we get exposure to non-tumor biopsies.

So could we get a running list (in addition to those mentioned) of Surg Path Fellowships that meet these criteria?

 

[Ruination]

So could we get a running list (in addition to those mentioned) of Surg Path Fellowships that meet these criteria?

G'luck with that. I would try to find one that allows you to function as a "junior attending" ala Hopkins rather than one that treats you like a 5th year resident. Elective time to shore up some subspecialty deficiencies or to pursue subspecialty interests would be a bonus. You'd have to email every fellowship to find out the gory details and lay to rest some of the misconceptions that people on this board may propagate, albeit inadvertently.

 

[gschl1234]

My understanding of the Hopkins fellow signout is that they are not just totally on their own and signing out all their cases. From what I heard they mainly do confirmations (sent in slides with existing diagnosis) and easier cases that they have with residents. Most of the cases they get are still ultimately signed out by faculty members.

If anyone has more knowledge of this feel free to correct me. I'm not saying it is not a great program, obviously it is one of the best and any signout duties the fellows do have must be great for learning.

The Hopkins system is a 3 day rotation where you do frozens, sign out, and confirming consults x 9 months. On signout you sit at a 2 person scope w/ the resident (who's previewed and done all the paperwork) and right next to you is another 2 headed scope where the attending on for the week signs out with the other resident. Theoretically, the 2 residents previewing the previous night should have balanced out trays so the attending and fellow (technically called SP assistant) see roughly equal # of slides. As an assistant, you're on your own for all 3 days but you can ask for help. For frozens, you can go to the attending on in-house service or if pancreas, Dr. Hruban is usually already there from the beginning so he can confirm your impression. For signout and confirmings, you can bring as much as you want to the 2:00 QA conference. But the assistant releases his/her cases and attendings don't signout or preview your cases for you. The other 3 months are electives. Call is shared among the 4 assistants over the year. There's always a resident on who gets the first page. All GYN, GI biopsies and Derm biopsies are signed out by subspecialty so the in-house SP service sees pretty much everything else.