Strengths
-Amazing specimen volume/variety (around 90K) with enough PA help to ensure a reasonably decent lifestyle.
-great faculty; most all are enthusiastic and eager to teach
-Subspecialty signout
-Good fellowship options (yet not too many fellows-this isn't a place where residents sign out with fellows). At the moment there are 2 GI, 2 derm, 2 heme, 1 cyto, with bone/ST, gen surg path, and GU in the works.
- CP: tons of experience in heme/lymphoma- 5 months heme, 3 months lymphoma (busy services). as far as the rest of CP, probably like any other place.
-Atmosphere: laid back. not an east coast vibe here.
Weaknesses
-Cleveland. Nuff said
-Preview time. Here, we are on a 2 day cycle- preview time is from when you finish cutting until signout the next morning. There isn't much time to ruminate over your cases, especially during first year when you're slow at cutting. It isn't much of a factor later- with the 3 pm specimen cutoff, it's usually pretty easy to wrap up cutting by 4 pm.
In the past, some have complained about derm exposure, as dermpath was run by the clinical folks. Dermpath is now co-directed by a derm and a pathologist, so now in addition to the derm-operated conferences we also have conferences specifically for the path people. We now have required derm time (where previously, you had to burn an elective on it).
All in all, I've been happy with my training here. I'm pretty sure we're as well trained as anybody in diagnostics. Unfortunately, "top programs" in path are determined by research reputation or are largely historic. Without naming names, this isn't a place where a minority of graduates actually go on to practice diagnostic path.
