Why Choose Academic Pathology and Laboratory Medicine?
Medical students experience numerous disciplines during their training and are required to choose a specialty to train in, often before they have had the opportunity to obtain sufficient information and exposure to make a truly informed decision. Departments of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine are well advised to develop opportunities and programs for medical students to be exposed to basic, translational, and clinical investigations in laboratory medicine and pathology.
The discipline of pathology and/or laboratory medicine has distinct advantages in fashioning a successful career as a physician scientist that embraces research and patient care.
• The core values of the specialty are research and education.
• The specialty is at the interface of clinical care and basic science.
• The specialty is at the interface of translational research and clinical care.
• Pathologists and laboratory physicians are the custodians of human biologic material and thus have an understanding of how to use this material to generate new knowledge in the pathogenesis of disease, and in clinical practice.
• Clinical subspecialty training programs link clinical education to research training.
• Pathologists and laboratory physicians have the training to carry out anatomical, biomedical and molecular analyses of animal model systems, an essential tool to study human disease.
• The clinical practice of pathology and laboratory medicine requires numerous skills that are identical to those required in basic, translational, and clinical research.
• Pathology and laboratory medicine is a high-intensity, knowledge based specialty and requires constant self-learning to provide high quality patient care, similar to the requirements of a research investigator.
• There are many interfaces between pathology/laboratory medicine and industry especially in the pursuit of prevention, diagnosis, prognosis, treatment and understanding of disease.