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Assisting Physicians in the care and treatment of their patients for 40 years.
What is a pathologist?
A pathologist is a physician who specializes in diagnosing diseases by examining tissue, blood, and body fluids using sophisticated laboratory techniques. Most training programs for pathology include 4 years of medical school followed by 5-6 years of residency and fellowship training.
Physicians in all fields consult pathologists to assist in the diagnosis of diseases affecting their patients. Once a diagnosis has been made, treatment can be tailored to the identified disease process.
For example, if a patient has a mole on his/her arm, and his/her doctor is concerned that the mole may be a type of skin cancer, the doctor may perform a biopsy of the area. This biopsy is placed in a fixative (formalin), and sent to the pathology laboratory. A pathologist or a specially trained assistant then examines the tissue and places it in a small rectangular plastic container for further processing. The tissue is then infiltrated with paraffin wax. Once it is solidly embedded within the wax, a very thin slice is made of the tissue using a precision cutting instrument. This slice is then placed on a glass slide, and the tissue is then stained with red and blue dyes. After the staining is complete, a pathologist looks at the tissue under a microscope. At this point, the cells that make up the mole can be seen. The pathologist has been trained to recognize the appearance of both normal and diseased tissue. This training allows him or her to tell the patient’s doctor whether the mole is just a freckle, a benign mole, or if it is a skin cancer. While this is an example of one specific type of tissue (skin), pathologists have been trained to examine all tissues within the body from head to toe. The examination of such tissues removed at surgery is called Surgical Pathology, which is one branch of Anatomic Pathology.
Histotechnologists cut thin sections of the tissue to be examined.
Clinical Pathology is another branch, and it involves diagnosing
disease through the analysis of blood and body fluids. One example is when a
patient has his/her blood drawn to check for anemia. Many tests are performed
by a single laboratory, and a pathologist plays many roles in the oversight of
these tests and in evaluating results in order to make diagnoses. This is
discussed in more detail elsewhere (click here).
Pathologists also play important roles within the medical community often serving as leaders of hospital medicine staffs. They are integral to committees that regulate various aspects of health care. Examples of topics covered by these committees include the usage of blood products, quality assurance, and infection control. Pathologists organize and present cases at many medical conferences. Included among these are multidisciplinary conferences where doctors of various specialties gather to discuss the best treatment for specific patients with various forms of cancer, leukemia, or lymphoma.