Surgical Pathology Rotation
Section Director: Jay Wasman, MD
Our Department processes approximately 55,000 surgical specimens per year and continues to expand its services at Cleveland Medical Center and to our numerous community hospital teams across Northeast Ohio. In addition, the Department of Dermatology accessions and signs out approximately 18,000 dermatopathology specimens annually at UHCMC. Our Department works collaboratively with the Department of Dermatology in the clinical and educational aspects of Dermatopathology. The range of surgical specimens is broad, and virtually every anatomic site is represented in our case material.
Service is provided by the following subspecialty teams and subspecialty-specific objectives have been provided by each team.
Subspecialty Team Leader
- Gastrointestinal Pathology: Ken Friedman, MD
- Genitourinary Pathology: Robin Elliott, MD
- Lung/Head and Neck Pathology: Jay Wasman, MD
- Breast Pathology: Hannah Gilmore, MD
- Gynecologic Pathology: Raymond Redline, MD
- Pediatric/Perinatal Pathology: Raymond Redline, MD
- Bone, Soft Tissue and Skin Pathology: Robin Elliott, MD
- Neuropathology: Mark Cohen, M.D. and Marta Couce, MD
- Endocrine Pathology: Sylvia Asa, MD
- Ophthalmic Pathology: Marta Couce, MD
- Oral Pathology: Ivan Stojanov, MD
- Medical Liver Pathology: Wendy Liu, MD
Duration
Surgical pathology (including intraoperative consultation) is integrated with the Anatomic Pathology rotation schedule, and is conducted throughout the first and third year of the typical AP/CP resident schedule. At the end of four years of training, each resident should have completed approximately 48 weeks of cumulative subspecialty training in the areas of Breast, Gastrointestinal, Genitourinary, Gynecologic, ENT/Thoracic and Peds/Perinatal/Bone and soft tissue pathology. Several additional weeks are dedicated to training in intraoperative consultation.
Duties and Responsibilities of Residents by Year
Although there is some degree of escalation as residents gain experience, residents typically have the same general responsibilities on surgical pathology rotations, regardless of their year of training. However, the expectations in how efficiently and accurately they fulfill those responsibilities varies based on experience. PGY1 residents are encouraged to focus on building a solid foundation in identifying normal histology and routine pathologies (both grossly and histologically), while senior residents (PGY3/4) are expected to generate differential diagnoses for more uncommon entities and to compose comprehensive and coherent reports. Familiarity and understanding of basic histochemical, immunohistochemical, molecular and other ancillary testing should be developed with continued training.
Supervision and Evaluation
In the grossing room, residents are supervised by senior residents, fellows and pathologist assistants, as well as by attending pathologists in certain cases. Microscopic review and final electronic sign-out is performed in conjunction with Anatomic Pathology faculty, providing opportunity for direct feedback, dialogue and teaching.
Resident progress toward the Core Competencies is evaluated each week the resident is assigned to any one of the surgical pathology subspecialty rotations.