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Outside the Lab Profession

The Great Pathology Bake-Off

After two years of practice, many pathologists and laboratory medicine professionals are master bakers and confectioners! We asked you to share your craft with us and the world and you delivered. Here, we showcase some of your showstopping cakes, cookies and more. Click on each image to reveal more about it – and to discover recipes you can use to create your own delicacies!

Brett Kurpiel | PGY-2 AP/CP Resident, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA

I’m Brett (@basophil_brett), a PGY2 AP/CP resident from the University of Virginia. I fancy myself an amateur baker and have plenty of bakes to choose from.

These images include a “blood bank” red velvet cake with candy glass shards for Halloween, me with various organ-shaped cookies I made for Donate Life Week in medical school, a pecan chocolate spice babka, and a blood orange cake!

Katie Lopez | Pathologists’ Assistant, Greensboro Pathology Associates, Greensboro, North Carolina, USA

I have always loved baking, but moving into my own home several years ago finally gave me the space to get creative! For Pathologists’ Assistants’ Day, I made breast lump and placenta cookies, prostate cake pops, splenule cakelets, and coronavirus cookies.

Rowena Pagulayan | Biomedical Scientist, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London, UK

This cake was made with Saracino modeling paste and has chocolate fudge inside. I wish you guys were here to smell it!

I highlighted the organisms we often see under the microscope, such as Gram positive cocci in chains and clusters, Gram negative bacilli and yeast. I even created two Petri dishes containing Escherichia coli and MRSA!

The model is based on my friend Sanuki here at Charing Cross Hospital.

Randika Jayasekara | Biomedical Scientist, North West London Pathology, London, UK

This is a cake from the microbiology department with a PCR cartridge, agar plates, and plastic loops.

The recipe was a coffee cake – a common madeira cake recipe with 250 g butter, 250 g caster sugar, 250 g flour, 2.5 tsp baking powder, and five eggs. I replaced the milk with 3 Tbsp strong coffee.

Hollis Notgrass | Lead Pathologists’ Assistant | Gross Room Supervisor, UT Southwestern, Dallas, Texas, USA


Stephanie Yentsch | POC Coordinator, UPMC Lititz, Pennsylvania, USA

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