Surgical Pathology

• Residents show the ability to analyze their practice experience and perform practice-based improvement activities using a systematic methodology, including:
  • Evaluating their gross reports for diagnostic and typographical errors (all PGY levels).
  • Assessing slides for technical and staining quality (PGY2-4).
  • Residents are given results of their concordance with staff diagnoses and are expected to use this information to direct their learning toward improving their diagnostic acumen (all PGY levels).
  • Senior residents actively participate in monthly Anatomic Pathology Quality Assurance Committee meetings, learning how to identify and report on a variety of QA monitors (case turnaround time, frozen section discrepancies/deferrals, histology quality monitors, amended/addended cases, cyto-histologic correlation, etc.) (PGY3-4).
• Residents show ability to locate, appraise, and assimilate evidence from scientific studies related to patients’ health care problems, including:
  • Perform literature search and review to find relevant scientific references to aid in the workup of surgical pathology cases (computer-based searches) (all PGY levels).
  • Obtain and incorporate information about their patient population (via COPATH computer searches and medical records chart review) for clinicopathologic study of selected diseases (all PGY levels).
• Residents are able to apply knowledge of study designs and statistical methods to the appraisal of clinical studies and other information on diagnostic and therapeutic effectiveness (PGY3-4).
• Residents demonstrate competency in the use of information technology to manage information, access on-line medical information, and support their own education, including:
  • Accessing of patient clinical information and previous pathology accessions via Medsite and Copath (all PGY levels).
  • Performance of computer searches of the medical literature (all PGY levels).
  • Utilize digital imaging technology (all PGY levels).
  • Access web sites pertaining to specific pathologic diagnoses (grading systems for tumors, etc.) (all PGY levels).
• Residents actively participate in the teaching of medical students and other health care professionals rotating through the anatomic pathology section, including:
  • Teaching medical students as lecturers, leaders in small groups and laboratory sections (PGY4).
  • Teaching medical students and residents from other disciplines during surgical specimen gross description and dissection (PGY2-4).

Evaluation:

• Rotation evaluation
• Review of resident portfolio yearly to assess improvement and discuss self-education