How can we help undergraduate medical students achieve their potential – in pathology and beyond? Alan Rampy presents an integrated curriculum, tested at his institution, that includes case-based learning, student feedback, and PILLARS: professionalism, inquiry, learning, and leadership through active research and synthesis. Robin LeGallo further explores how to assist a struggling student by identifying the problem and developing a plan that includes deliberate practice, feedback, and self-assessment. How can educators promote success? By giving students permission to change, presenting reasonable challenges, setting an expectation of growth, providing connections to faculty and peers, and offering them choice.
Valerie Fitzhugh recommends using social media platforms for education and interaction – but she warns: follow your institution’s social media policy, don’t use your academic account for private content, remember that everything you post on the Internet is public (even on a private account), and take great care over HIPAA. Don’t post anything that could identify your patient – and don’t post anything you might regret later! With those cautions in mind, pathologists and laboratory medicine professionals can benefit greatly from social media.
Is informatics the future of our discipline? Karen Kaul thinks so – and notes that the conversation is increasingly shifting from “traditional” digital pathology to artificial intelligence (AI). The goal? To make systems foolproof for primary care providers and to encourage them to use laboratory data. Alexis Carter adds that interoperability is the key to widespread adoption, particularly with the rise of AI. Currently, we lack good standards for AI in medicine, but with greater adoption comes greater experience – and pathologists are vital to its continued improvement.
Pathologists and laboratory medicine professionals interested in leadership roles often find themselves unsure of how to proceed. Pathology’s wide-ranging influence on other medical disciplines makes us ideally positioned for educational leadership – but those opportunities must be made available to those who desire them. Paul Hemmer introduces Schein’s classification of occupational subcultures and suggests that current leaders often adopt the “executive” style, whereas policy-based leadership requires a move toward the “engineer” style and evidence-based leadership mandates the “operator” style.
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