Eduardo Alcaraz
Surgical pathologist at Morales Meseguer University Hospital, Murcia, and adjunct professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of Murcia, Spain
Biggest challenge in pathology? Managing the balance between research, education, and service. If we don't do research and teaching, others will, and their motives may not be purely scientific. On the other hand, who better than a motivated pathologist to passionately teach the ins and outs of diseases and their morphological changes through the microscope? To do this, we need resources and time from administrations. Time is especially what we lack.
Controversial opinion? I believe the incorporation of new drugs and diagnostic techniques and their quantification (such as the evaluation of PD-L1) is somewhat subjective and makes us responsible for expensive treatments – giving us both power and a great responsibility. Pathologists are used to responsibility, but like everything, new things always pose a challenge. I expect advances in image analysis and AI may alleviate a lot of the heavy lifting here.
Professional ambitions? My greatest ambitions lie in medical education. I'd like to think the non-profit inventions and proposals that I am developing (the FioNA training model for fine needle aspiration, the dissection models and the SimInPath app to evaluate competencies in pathology) are well received with the positive feedback I’ve received. This motivates me to advance in other areas, such as virtual reality. Future endeavors could lead to more innovative learning tools focused on patient safety through simulation-based approaches.
