Conferences and Lecture Series

Anatomic Pathology

Anatomic Pathology Lecture Series

This weekly lecture series occurs on Tuesday or Wednesday at 8 am. It covers basic and advanced topics in all areas of surgical and autopsy diagnostics. To complement the lectures, some speakers will distribute slide sets for resident review during the prior week.

An additional series of six lectures addressing basic autopsy topics is integrated into the AP didactic sessions. This conference teaches pathology residents how to recognize the gross appearance of disease and optimal dissection methods. The conference also provides attendants with an appreciation of underlying pathologies, potentially not evident during life, and thereby contributes to a greater understanding of the patient’s medical condition.

Surgical Slide Conference

This one hour conference occurs on Tuesdays and Fridays at noon. Histopathology slides of educational cases are selected by faculty and placed out as unknowns for the residents to review during the week. During the conference, a staff member will call on a resident to present each case. The most important elements are to describe the histological findings, formulate a differential diagnosis, and indicate the need for additional studies for definitive diagnosis when appropriate, e.g., specific antibodies to use for immunoperoxidase staining. The resident will then state the diagnosis, if known, and the staff member responsible for the case will then amplify on the resident's presentation as needed. The ultimate goal is to teach residents how to approach difficult issues in histopathological diagnosis, as a thoughtful and rigorous approach fundamental to the art of diagnostic pathology. To facilitate presentations, the conference room is outfitted with a high resolution microscope and a live digital imaging and projection system. This allows presentation of important findings extemporaneously without need of a multi- headed scope. In the near future, a recently installed telehealth system connected to the same microscope system will allow examination of unknowns from remote areas and/or participation of additional sites. This conference has been approved for CME I credit.

Neuropathology Conference

The Neuropathology conference occurs on Tuesdays at 9:30 am in the Autopsy Room. Attending neuropathologists perform a postmortem examination of brain and spinal cord specimens and discuss findings with attending pathology residents, neurology residents, neurology staff, and medical students. In a typical conference, the clinical history and differential diagnosis are reviewed first, followed by sectioning of the brain, brainstem, cerebellum, and spinal cord. Based on the gross findings, clinical-pathologic correlations are discussed. 

Clinical Pathology

Clinical Pathology Lecture Series

This is a weekly morning lecture series held at 8 am on Monday or Wednesday. It is designed to introduce residents to important topics and concepts in laboratory medicine. Although presented predominantly by clinical pathology faculty from each of the clinical laboratories, occasional outside speakers contribute special expertise. Topics cover both fundamentals and emerging areas in laboratory medicine. Laboratory Management and Informatics topics are covered in a series of lectures in the spring, including regulatory issues; laboratory accreditation and inspection; cost accounting; ordering, billing, and fraud; statistics; and test implementation. 

Laboratory Medicine Case Conference

This conference, held at noon on Wednesday, serves as a way to review all important issues that arise in our laboratory medicine division on a weekly basis. It helps hone our skills in diagnostics and laboratory practice, both of which need to be mastered by clinical pathologists. Clinical pathology residents covering the Chemistry, Cytogenetics, Hematology, Hematopathology, Microbiology, and Transfusion Medicine services keep lists of their weekly consultations and other instructive issues in their respective laboratories. These lists are distributed to all residents and clinical pathology staff at the beginning of the conference. Residents on each of the CP services, including the on call resident, serve in turn as discussion leaders during a five minute presentation/free ranging discussion about a laboratory medicine issue they think is of greatest importance. The resident will present background and data, and will then call on other residents to give a differential, interpret results, suggest additional tests, etc. There is animated discussion about each issue, to which clinical pathology staff extensively contribute. Generally, the clinical pathology chief resident organizes the conference and previews the resident lists and will identify issues for further discussion. However, the audience may ask about any issue on the lists. This conference has been approved for CME I credit.  

Microbiology Plate Rounds

This one hour conference is held weekly at 12:30 on Thursdays in the Microbiology Laboratory (Rabb 350) and is required for all residents rotating through the microbiology service. Residents demonstrate organisms and diagnostic techniques with graded responsibility for conference preparation during the course of the year. Cases are chosen based on input from the infectious disease service, interest of organisms identified during the week, and overall year-long educational plan. Other conference participants include infectious disease fellows and attendings, medical technologists, and medical students. Infectious disease fellows provide relevant clinical correlation on cases followed by the infectious disease service. To facilitate observation of microscopic findings, we use a high resolution video camera to capture live microscopic images and display them on a large, wall-mounted LCD monitor. This is a hands on conference in which the entire diagnostic process is demonstrated and includes examination of plates, gram stains, epi-fluorescent staining, cytopathic effects observed by phase contrast microscopy, specialized biochemical assays, and multiple methods for susceptibility determinations.  

Experimental Pathology

Seminar Series

Sponsored weekly by our department on Fridays at 1:30 p.m. in the Research North 1st floor conference room, this seminar series hosts scientists from around the world, who present their latest research findings. Topics and invited speakers generally reflect the research interests of our department and are therefore weighted toward the fields of cancer biology and angiogenesis. Prior to their talks, speakers generally meet with graduate students and postdoctoral fellows during a department sponsored lunch in our conference room.

Data Club

Postdoctoral fellows and graduate students present their findings to faculty and peers on a weekly rotating schedule (10:00 to 11:00 AM, Tuesdays, in the First Floor Research North Conference Room). All Experimental Pathology trainees are required to attend and present. Generally, there are two presentations per week of approximately twenty minutes each, allowing time for questions and discussion.  

Department-Wide

Resident Grand Rounds

Resident presentations occur two Mondays a month at noon in the Goldman Conference Room. The format consists of in-depth presentations of interesting topics. In each session two residents present topics for approximately 25 minutes, allowing time for questions and discussion. Third year AP/CP residents or second year AP-only or CP-only residents may choose to present one 50 minute talk instead of two 25 minute talks. Topics are chosen by residents and may relate to experiences in AP, CP, and/or research projects. For example, a particular disease process may be reviewed. Presentations that bridge the different disciplines of pathology are highly encouraged. So, for example, in discussion of a surgical pathology entity, relevant clinical laboratory findings might also be discussed, along with the current scientific understanding of the disease process.

Resident Journal Club

Held at noon one Monday of each month, two residents each present primary research articles in a journal club format. The journal club serves a primary goal of teaching our residents how to critically read the medical and scientific literature. The papers are sent to the other residents prior to the conference. Residents assume the role of discussion leader; however, we encourage active and animated participation of the audience, many of whom will also have read the papers ahead of time. Residents are assigned a faculty advisor to help with paper selection and preparation.

Pathology Grand Rounds

Held at noon one Thursday of each month from September through May, in the Goldman Conference Room. Topics are aimed at a broader audience than our departmental research seminar series.

Pathology Morbidity & Mortality Conference

As an approach focused on Department-wide learning, Pathology-specific M&M conferences aim at transforming adverse or near-miss events from sources of frustration and anxiety to sources of learning, improvement, and increased patient safety. It provides us with a platform to review our own adverse events and near misses, examine our processes, explore root causes, and discuss improvement opportunities.

This activity is mainly designed to improve transparency and encourage systematic thinking on adverse events or near misses. It serves as a platform to learn from previous experience, identify problems and share the best practice. It also helps initiate quality improvement or workflow redesign projects to create a better system for delivering better patient outcomes. This conference is held on the last Friday of the month, September through May, and has been approved for CME I credit.