Graduate Medical Education Training Programs

CLINICAL PATHOLOGY RESIDENCY TRAINING

Resident Rotation Summary

GENERAL ORIENTATION:

Purpose: It is the sole purpose and ultimate goal of the Clinical Pathology Residency Program, Clinical Laboratories and Director of Clinical Pathology to provide structured educational rotations through all clinical departments in an effort to expose each resident to adequate knowledge in order to successfully achieve board certification in Clinical Pathology and safely function as a resource clinician in the practice of Pathology.

Plan: To successfully achieve this ultimate goal, it is imperative that each resident spend six months of each required residency year in Clinical Pathology. The Clinical Pathology rotations can be no less than 2-month blocks, but optimally will be three-month blocks. During this time, the Program Director and Director of Clinical Pathology will assign the specific rotations to the residents based on the prior completed clinical rotations, the academic status of the resident and the basic fundamental knowledge of the resident. It is also imperative that, during the Clinical Pathology rotations, the residents will be responsible only for Clinical Pathology, relieving all anatomic pathology commitments during that time, with the exception of assigned conferences. The reverse, of course, will be upheld. In addition, during the Clinical Pathology rotations, the resident will take only Clinical Pathology call. This separation is done in an effort to clarify responsibility, to provide a more meaningful, realistic experience, and to facilitate work-load completion when both clinical and anatomic duties are needed in an on-call scenario. The Clinical Pathology residents will answer directly to the individual laboratory directors with ultimate responsibility to the Director of Clinical Pathology.

Each clinical laboratory rotation will begin with orientation to the particular laboratory and explanation of objectives by the Director of Clinical Pathology. It must be understood by the residents that clinical pathology is a science that is learned, in part, by spending a finite amount of time on the bench with a Medical Technologist. This is not intended to suffice in the absence of the laboratory director and will not replace direct one-to-one interaction with the laboratory director or Director of Clinical Pathology. During each rotation, the resident is expected to attend clinical rounds (once/week) with the clinical department associated with the specific laboratory, ie: Hematology/Hematopathology with Heme/Onc; Microbiology with Infectious Disease; Chemistry with Medicine; Blood Bank with Trauma; Immunology with Heme/Onc. The Director of Clinical Pathology will meet one time per week for one hour with all clinical pathology residents. A Journal Club-like meeting will be conducted by each resident in which the resident will present a review article, approved by the Director of Clinical Pathology, to the Technical staff and other residents on Clinical Pathology rotations. Each clinical pathology resident will present Grand Rounds to the Department of Pathology on a topic approved by the residency committee or department Chair. Finally, one publication (Case of the month is acceptable) per rotation will be produced by the resident.

A pre and post test will be administered ONLY to evaluate the knowledge gained by the resident and will not be used as a “grade”. A copy of the tests will NOT be placed in the resident’s file.

On-call duties for Clinical Pathology residents are described in detail in the On-Call Manual and will be reviewed in orientation by the Director of Clinical Pathology. Each time a resident is called, a report in consultation form will be written and the information added to the consult sheet for future reference when the resident applies to sit for Pathology Boards. Additionally, whenever the Clinical Pathology resident interacts professionally and consultatively with a clinician, a report in consultation form will be completed for the same purpose.

These are the general requirements of all Clinical Pathology rotations. Following is a succinct description of each laboratory rotation. These requirements are to be followed and any deviation without prior consent of the Director of Clinical Pathology may result in an unsatisfactory grade for the rotation.