pathology – Page 32 – Lablogatory

Generation Gap from a Resident’s POV

I was talking with my attending and fellow this week and was struck by the generation gap in terms of how we were/are trained. When my attending was in residency, he had to handle over 100+ CP calls in a week – he even keeps one of his call sheets to back up his stories. In some ways, we are spoiled because we can just say that there is an APP to do many of the calculations he had to do then and so we’re not even paged on these types of calls. These days, I may average 10+ CP calls/week at the same institution where he trained at. He also said that they didn’t have PAs back then and it wasn’t unusual to gross until close to midnight…and the grossing resident also covered all frozen sections at the same time, too. His is not the first attending story that I’ve heard like this. Obviously, this was before we had work hour reform. But I wonder what we’ve lost in training since his time?

I’ve often heard residents complain that we have too many service duties and that they feel that service duties supersede our education. Most of the time these complaints revolve around not having enough time to read and too much “scutwork” including grossing routine specimens. I’m no expert by any means but I feel that for me, I’ve learned more when I’ve had to do things as opposed to reading textbooks. And by doing things, I mean performing those duties that are required of my attending as close as possible to the real experience. And yes, that does include lots of reading, not just textbooks but also journal articles and other resources, but is not limited mainly to reading.

Gone are the days where I could skip (or attend) my medical school classes and watch a video of the lecture and read the textbook and do well on exams. The more important difference is that now the consequences of my actions can more directly harm patients so it’s vitally important to gain “attending skills” as well and as soon as I can. And even after graduation, I know that it will still take a few years before I am comfortable in my clinical competency. I know that I’ll be more stressed and OCD about details because it will be my name at the end of the report that is responsible for patient care decisions and also liable for medico-legal action. But I want to be as prepared as possible when that time comes.

Residency is the time when we should transition from passive learning (ie – learning mostly by reading textbooks) to active “on the job” learning. Sure, if no one at your program wants to teach you, then you may be stuck with textbooks and online resources. But I’ll take a bet that even at the most “malignant” programs, there is always at least one golden mentor (including non-attendings) who wants to teach. And remember, that during fellowship, your attendings will expect that you have most of these skills in your portfolio and that you have good time management skills. No one expects that we have knowledge of everything (even our attendings don’t have that), but they will expect that we know how to approach that situation if we find ourselves unsure.

Anyway, that’s not my most important point. I find that complaining just wastes my energy that can be directed to a more useful endeavor. Yes, if I feel something is truly unjust, I will be one of the first to say something. But I realize that the patient is the center of my training and not me, their needs supersede mine, and yes, there will always be scut but it depends on how I approach it what I get out of it. Plus, I realize that compared to other specialties, I didn’t have an intern year and don’t have to do overnights, so I’m thankful that my residency experience is not as bad as it could be.

A generation gap exists where our attendings can’t understand why we complain and where we don’t feel our attendings understand us. But I think that there is a middle ground. I don’t think that we should go back to unregulated work hours where we are dangerously fatigued and never get to see our family and friends. But I also don’t believe that residency training is there to spoon-feed me. It is the time for me to spread my wings (with supervision, of course) and learn how I’d navigate my clinical duties as a future independent attending.

For those going into surgical pathology, you may still end up working at a hospital where you may need to gross or at least, look at specimens or teach how to gross. The end of residency doesn’t necessarily mean the end of grossing (or insert you least favorite aspect of residency here). A friend was telling me that he overheard attendings at a networking reception complaining about a new hire they had who didn’t know how to gross. If that was at a private practice, I would expect that after a short time allowed for remediation, that if that new hire didn’t improve, s/he would be fired. There may be more leniency at an academic or VA institution, but I also believe that if a better replacement could be found, that person would still be fired.

So residency is the time to make sure we gain competency in skills like grossing, lab management, billing, CLIA regulations…even if these are usually the things that we find to be boring. Sign-out is not even half of what will be required of us when we are full-fledged attendings, especially if you want to work in private practice, which is where most of us end up since the compensation is greater.

Getting involved in leadership positions, whether at your hospital, state society, or within a national advocacy organization in my experience opens doors to many practical opportunities as well. For instance, I’ll be going with my hospital’s CAP lab accreditation inspection team this month to help inspect the hematology section of a lab in another state. Because my department chair knows I have an interest in hematopathology and because I performed well on my first CP rotation here, I was given this great opportunity. I’m now certified as a CAP inspector and will have a better idea of lab management issues after this experience. Due to my involvement as the junior member on CAP’s Council on Education, I’ve also been given the opportunity to serve as the ACCME/AMA compliance monitor at a joint CME activity of CAP and a state pathology society in the near future. I see this as active learning and a step toward gaining the competencies that I will need.

Right now, we are buffered from much more than we realize. Probably as a fellow, we will understand the end game better, just how much our attendings’ days are filled with more than just sign-out. I suggest reading the article, “Adequacy of Pathology Resident Training for Employment: A Survey Report from the Future of Pathology Task Group” that outlines specific competencies that employers wanted and that residents did not possess adequate competencies in. It goes on to state that 50% of employers felt that new graduates that they hired needed more support and guidance than was required 10 years ago. So what can we do now during training to ensure that we are not those new graduates who are perceived as needing “more” supervision at our first job?

-Betty Chung, DO, MPH, MA is a third year resident physician at Rutgers – Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ.

Radiologic and Pathologic Correlations

So last night I stayed later than usual after work to prepare for an interdepartmental conference that I will be giving next Friday before I fly out that night to attend the CAP Residents Forum and Annual Meeting. A radiology resident and I will be presenting two cases together to correlate their radiology and pathology, two specialties that have much in common, at least on the surface.

Both radiologists and pathologists, at least pre-ACA era and except for subspecializations like interventional radiology and transfusion medicine, do not often interact with patients directly. Therefore, both fields rely heavily on clinical observations and notes written by the primary care doctors caring for “their” patients. Both also require a broad knowledge of disease differentials, and frequently, understanding the prognostic and treatment considerations of the disorder under examination even though they are not involved in direct care of the patient. Additionally, both fields require good communication with primary care physicians.

Senior radiology residents attend a month-long course correlating radiology with the corresponding pathophysiology of diseases at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) now known as the American Institute for Radiologic Pathology (AIRP). I remember during medical school trying to set up an elective at what was then called AFIP but was not able to since it is only open to radiology residents.

At both my previous and current institution, the “rads-path conference” as it is affectionately called, is informal and driven by the radiology department in terms of case choices. It’s meant to be a learning experience but generally the only pathology residents who attend are the one(s) presenting while all the radiology residents available have to attend. Seems somewhat ironic that the learning is mostly one-sided, and it’s bad that our two departments don’t do this more as a true inter-departmental conference.

Pathology and radiology are two fields that also often get left out when publications are written even though our final diagnoses, and sometimes, even images are used within publication submissions. As residents in these fields, we should make an active effort to interact with our primary care counterparts frequently. We should do this not only to be included in such scholarly endeavors but also to show that we are also equal members of the patient care team and are not forgotten when treatment discussions take place.

It also happens with tumor boards as well that most of the choice of cases and topics for discussion come from the non-pathology department. So what are your opinions on how we should interact with other departments for patient care discussions and inter-departmental conferences?

-Betty Chung, DO, MPH, MA is a third year resident physician at Rutgers – Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ.

The Importance of Supportive Mentorship and “Junior Attending” Experiences

Over the last few weeks I have spent more time revising my fellowship application personal statements than I would like. While my attendings have been a great source of feedback, it’s hard to know what fellowship directors would like to see highlighted. But going through this process, I have realized even more palpably than I had previously thought before, that two things have been important in bringing me to this point: supportive mentorship and “junior attending” experiences.

Let’s start with supportive mentorship and the definition of mentor. The word Mentōr derives from the Greek name of the friend of Odysseus and advisor to his son, Telemachus, in Homer’s Odyssey. Therefore, first and foremost, a mentor is an advisor: someone who is more expert and who guides you. But what I’ve found is that a professional mentor is more than a mere advisor.

I have been extremely blessed and grateful when it comes to my mentors. Not only do they advise me but they also think of me when opportunities arise such as a possible research project or publication or to be a member of their CAP lab accreditation team that inspects another institution’s lab. Besides building up my CV, these activities also help me to acquire skills that I will need in my future professional capacity. I at first didn’t necessarily think of including some of these experiences on my CV but after a talk with a fellowship director, realized that these are the types of experiences that they would like to know about – if I’ve had previous experience where I gained a skill, then they feel I will be faster to train in terms of skills that build on that initial skill.

This brings me to my second point: the importance of “junior attending” experiences. What I mean by this term is the opportunity to participate in patient care or directorship duties in as close to a capacity as your attending would have. This could mean initial sign-out without direct supervision (of course, attending review has to occur prior to true verification) in terms of patient cases, whether it be AP or CP cases, or the initial preview of a frozen section. In terms of lab management, this could mean participating in preparation for a CAP inspection or serving on a CAP inspection team that goes to another institution. And in terms of most CP rotations, serving as the primary consultant for primary physicians about lab tests and discussing evidence-based and cost-effective ordering of appropriate tests or developing, troubleshooting, or validating a new assay.

Whatever the attending does in the course of their daily workload is where we should focus on acquiring skills. While writing my personal statement and CV, I talked with fellowship directors, and this became clearer to me. It’s all about having the proper attitude. Yes, there can be a lot of “scut” during our training but in comparison to other specialties (and those who have to do an intern year), we are fortunate to have less of it. Either way, the work has to get done, “scut” or not, so might as well learn from it and you might be surprised how it helps you later. Our attendings are not free from “scut” in their daily work either. If we think of the “scut” as attached to a patient who is waiting for their diagnosis, it makes the work go easier and faster in my opinion.

Having a positive attitude, working hard, and becoming known for certain qualities and skills only help in terms of developing strong relationships with mentors (who will one day be your colleagues) and being given those “junior attending” opportunities. Strive to be the first person they think of in those situations. Remember we are no longer in school and the faster you acquire the characteristics, knowledge, and skills of an attending, the better off you will be when it comes to progressing to the next phase.

-Betty Chung, DO, MPH, MA is a third year resident physician at Rutgers – Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ.

Ebola Information for Laboratory Professionals

While it’s unlikely you will ever encounter a case of Ebola, it’s best to be prepared. The CDC has a health advisory page full of information, including specimen requirements for Ebola testing. The laboratory’s first step is to contact their state health department.

The State of Graduate Medical Education and Meeting Our Nation’s Health Needs

The Institute on Medicine (IOM), the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences that provides analysis and advice on national health issues, released its report “Graduate Medical Education that Meets the Nation’s Health Needs” on July 29, 2014. Citing a lack of transparency and accountability in our current system and discordance with producing the types of physicians necessary to meet our nation’s health needs, the IOM recommended a significant overhaul of our current system of graduate medical education (GME) financing and governance over the next ten years.

Since the creation of Medicare in 1965, the federal government has provided the majority of funding for the post-graduate training of physicians with about two-thirds provided by Medicare. Originally intended as a temporary measure until a more suitable one could be found, this system has financed GME since 1965. Approximately, $15 billion ($9.7 billion from Medicare) was spent in 2012 to support GME funding.¹The IOM’s report remain recommendations unless enacted into law by Congress so aggressive lobbying efforts are expected in the forthcoming months.

In fact, there has already been quick and varied response by multiple academic medical organizations: the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC), the American Hospital Association (AHA), and the American Medical Association (AMA) vehemently opposed and warned that the IOM’s recommendations would destabilize our current GME infrastructure while the American Association of Family Physicians (AAFP) supported the recommendations and the American College of Physicians (ACP) falls somewhere in between. If we break down the major recommendations of the report, the reasons for each organization’s opinions become more apparent but this does not necessarily help us to determine the best way to distribute GME funding to address our future healthcare workforce needs.

Currently, there are two components to GME funding from the federal government: direct and indirect. Direct graduate medical education (DGME) funding provides for the “direct costs” of teaching hospitals for the training of residents: the salaries and benefits of residents and the faculty who supervises them, the salaries of GME administrative staff, and allocated institutional overhead costs such as electricity, space rental, and maintenance. Each hospital receives DGME funding as a per-resident amount (PRA) which is hospital specific and calculated as the DGME costs in 1984 (or 1985) divided by the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) residents per year.²This PRA is updated annually with an inflation factor and adjustment for that hospital’s resident count, limited, of course, by that hospital’s resident cap (number of allowed total residents) set by the Congressional Balanced Budget Act (BBA) of 1997.

The Medicare portion of DGME is calculated by a ratio based on the number of total in-patient days in that hospital spent by Medicare patients divided by the total number of in-patient days by all patients. There are separate PRA’s for primary care and non-primary care residents with those in primary care specialties (family medicine, general internal medicine, general pediatrics, OB/Gyn, preventative medicine, geriatric medicine, general osteopathic medicine) receiving a slightly higher amount. This is due to a congressional freeze on PRA inflation updates on non-primary care residents in 1994 and 1995.

Indirect graduate medical education (IME) funding are additional amounts paid to teaching hospitals for the “indirect costs” of being a teaching hospital. They generally incur more costs than non-teaching hospital settings due to having a sicker patient load and more “non-quantifiable” costs (eg – residents ordering extra tests).³This payment is based on a formula that takes into account the ratio between the number of interns and residents and the number of patient beds (IRB ratio) adjusted with a variable multiplier and IRB ratio caps that are set by Congress. IME funding is not weighted like DGME funding where the number of residents in their “initial residency period” (IRP) are counted as 1.0 FTE and those beyond this period as 0.5 FTE.

Of course, these funding formulas can get very complicated and are adjusted with each new Congressional legislative action on GME. But now that you have a rudimentary idea of how the federal government and Medicare fund our education as residents, let’s consider the recent IOM recommendations.

IOM Recommendation #1: aggregate GME funding should remain at current levels ($15 bil/yr) with adjustments only made for inflation over the next ten years while the recommended new GME policy is implemented; the bulk of funding ($10 bil/yr) will continue to come from Medicare.

Supporting Argument: the current GME system is unsustainable and needs to become more performance- and value-based as healthcare system evolves under healthcare reform; this would provide stable (albeit not increased) funding over this transitional period.

Opposing Argument: for years, academic medical associations and their allies have recommended an increase in GME funding stating that the rate of increase has not kept up with inflation and the expense of educating our nation’s future healthcare workforce; additionally, they have consistently recommended lifting the GME cap with little success.

IOM Recommendation #2: a new GME Policy Council should be established within the Office of Health and Human Services to provide guidance on GME issues and a new GME Center within the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to administer GME funding.

Supporting Argument: more transparency and accountability is needed to make sure that our dollars are well spent to produce more efficient use and better health outcomes for patients.

Opposing Argument: more bureaucratic and inefficient “red tape” and hoops to jump through without added benefit.

IOM Recommendation #3: eliminate the DGME and IME structure and replace with an Operational Fund to finance existing GME programs; the other portion of funding would support a Transformational Fund focused on innovation and programs in needed and underserved areas.

Supporting Argument: the Operational Fund would provide for currently existing programs so as not to destabilize GME funding during the proposed transition; the Transformational Fund would be targeted to address the current geographic and subspecialty maldistribution that exists.

Opposing Argument: the geographic and subspecialty maldistribution is nothing new but merely funneling more money toward these areas will not necessarily provide more healthcare professionals in these underserved areas or specialties, especially as long as student loan financing structures remain as they are currently. This recommendation also will significantly affect the funding amounts currently received by teaching hospitals, especially urban based hospitals, where the majority of GME takes place.

IOM Recommendation #4: provide funding based on PRA only with geographic adjustments and end payments based on Medicare in-patient days, IRB ratio, and other factors currently in the funding formula. These PRA funds would be directed to the GME sponsors who are responsible for the actual educational content for the training of interns and residents rather than to teaching hospitals alone. GME sponsors can be teaching hospitals, educational institutions, community health centers, or GME consortia.⁴

Supporting Argument: funding would go directly to those responsible the actual educational content which may be a non-teaching hospital setting; studies do not support a physician workforce shortage, especially in primary care specialties.

Opposing Argument: this recommendation again will disproportionately hurt teaching hospitals as they tend to have a sicker patient load, have more patient beds, and have access to more expensive tests and treatments than more community-based and/or non-teaching hospitals; teaching hospitals often are the main settings for GME, although not necessarily the only settings, and may need to make cuts based on resident education versus operational costs of the hospital with reduction of resident slots as the outcome when a physician workforce shortage is looming.

The IOM recommendations assert to support a more targeted, performance-based investment in the training of our future healthcare workforce but do they really? Obviously, GME funding has been a hotly debated topic for the past 50 years so there are no simple solutions and everyone has their own biased opinion. Even though I have some health policy and advocacy training from my MPH and grassroots organizing background, I don’t profess to be a health policy wonk by any means so I encourage you to become more informed and decide your own opinion. And if so inclined, become more involved in health policy advocacy with the political action committees (PAC) of your affiliated academic medical organizations to lobby for your beliefs.

You can read or download an electronic copy of the report free online at: http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2014/Graduate-Medical-Education-That-Meets-the-Nations-Health-Needs.aspx

References
1. Institute on Medicine (IOM). Graduate Medical Education that Meets the Nation’s Health Needs. July 29, 2014. 256 pages.

2. American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC). Medicare Direct Graduate Medical Education (DGME) Payments; accessed on 8/8/14 at https://www.aamc.org/advocacy/gme/71152/gme_gme0001.html

3. T Johnson and TW Coons. Recent Developments in DGME and IME Payments. American Health Lawyers Association. Updated by Laurie Garvey on 3/16/10; accessed on 8/9/14 at http://www.healthlawyers.org/Events/Programs/Materials/Documents/MM10/coons_johnson.pdf

4. E. Salsberg. IOM Graduate Medical Education Report: Better Aligning GME Funding with Healthcare Workforce Needs. Health Affairs Blog. July 31, 2014; accessed on 8/10/14 at http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2014/07/31/iom-graduate-medical-education-report-better-aligning-gme-funding-with-health-workforce-needs/

-Betty Chung, DO, MPH, MA is a third year resident physician at Rutgers – Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ.

Moving Forward One (Baby) Step at a Time

As this summer passes quickly by, I find myself, once again, anticipating the fall Annual Meeting of ASCP. Deadlines are fast approaching as I pull together my own power point presentation, review the schedule for sessions to moderate as well as those I wish to attend on my own time.

Many of you are involved in the planning process for the Annual Meeting and understand the deliberation and organization that this entails. The plethora of educational proposals is vast, submitted by numerous respected individuals and teams. Given the back-drop of this immense undertaking, I must say that I was thrilled this year to be a part of the discussion for the newly -created Hot Topics in Clinical Pathology. This has been a long-awaited moment for me and many of my cronies who have felt for quite a long time that the focus on Surgical Pathology at the Annual Meeting has essentially pushed aside the importance of Clinical Pathology and Laboratory Medicine as a vital part of everyday pathology practice.

With the creation of the “Hot Topics” track, we at least begin to see a small, but significant move forward. Clinical Laboratory Scientists clearly identify their work and the laboratory as primary contributors to patient care. Pathologists should begin to embrace this concept more fervently. The fields of Microbiology, Coagulation, Hematology, Transfusion Medicine, Serology, Chemistry (and a multitude of other areas) are expanding rapidly and are the KEY to understanding, diagnosing, monitoring and treatment of disease. Our clinical laboratories support and enhance our Surgical Pathology practices as well and the sooner pathologists regain the interest and care for these areas within our expertise, the better off our patients will be (and yes…they are OUR patients too!)

Hats off to the Annual Meeting Planning Committee for taking this bold step (although a “baby” one) toward bringing Clinical Pathology back into the fold. I hope to see this agenda pushed forward and expanded, not just at the Annual Meeting, but also in our other educational offerings. We are, by the way, the American Society for Clinical Pathology!

Our clinical laboratories and clinical pathologists are not the departments or doctors of the lesser god! Hope to see you in Tampa, in attendance at the Hot Topics sessions!

-Dr. Burns was a private practice pathologist, and Medical Director for the Jewish Hospital Healthcare System in Louisville, KY. for 20 years. She has practiced both surgical and clinical pathology and has been an Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of Louisville. She is currently available for consulting in Patient Blood Management and Transfusion Medicine. You can reach her at cburnspbm@gmail.com.

Right Test, Right Time, Right Patient: The Age of Lab Stewardship

Last week, I attended the American Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC) conference in Chicago. I attended molecular diagnostics talks but also talks about quality improvement, the use of “big data,” and lab stewardship. I have an interest in QI as my AACC poster presentation last year was on lab interventions to reduce lab error frequency and I am also a resident on my hospital’s performance improvement committee.

So, what exactly is “big data?” It’s a word that we are hearing more often in the media these days. It’s also a term that is increasingly being used in our healthcare systems. In 2001, analyst Doug Laney defined “big data” as the “3 V’s: volume, velocity, and variety” so that’s as good a point as any to start deconstructing its meaning.

Volume refers to the enormous amounts of data that we can now generate and record due to the blazing advancement of technology. It also implies that traditional processing matters will not suffice and that innovative methods are necessary both to store and analyze this data. Velocity refers to the ability to stream data at speeds that most likely exceed our ability to analyze it completely in real-time without developing more technically advanced processors. And finally, variety refers to the multiple formats, both structured (eg – databases) and unstructured (eg – video), in which we can obtain this data.

I’m always amazed at the ability of the human mind to envision and create something new out of the void of presumed nothingness. Technology has always outstripped our ability to harness its complete potential. And the healthcare sector has usually been slower to adopt technology than other fields such as the business sector. I remember when EMR’s were first suggested and there was a lot of resistance (in med school, not that long ago, I still used paper patient charts). But now, healthcare players feel both pressure from external policy reforms and internal culture to capture and analyze “big data” in order to make patient care more cost-effective, safe, and evidence-based. And an increasing focus and scrutiny (and even compensation) on lab stewardship is a component of this movement.

I often find myself in the role of a “lab steward” during my CP calls. The majority of my calls involve discussing with, and sometimes, educating, referring physicians about the appropriateness of tests or blood products that they ordered…and not uncommonly, being perceived as the test/blood product “police” when I need to deny an order. But lab stewardship goes both ways. And these days, the amount of learning we need to keep up with to know how to be a good lab steward is prodigious, daunting, and sometimes, seemingly impossible.

So do you believe in this age of lab stewardship that it’s the job of the pathologist to collect and analyze “big [lab] data” and to employ the results to help ordering physicians to choose the right test at the right time for the right patient? Or is it a collaborative effort with ordering physicians? With patients? How do you foresee that the future practice of medicine needs to change from standards of practice currently?

-Betty Chung, DO, MPH, MA is a third year resident physician at Rutgers – Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ.

Getting Out of an Intellectual Laziness Slump

I’m currently listening to the Q&A session after a Big Data Analytics talk in the Grand Ballroom here at the American Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC) Annual Meeting at the McCormick Place in Chicago. As a medical resident with an MPH and health economic and statistics training and someone who helped perform lab error analysis during my PGY1 year that culminated in a poster presentation at this meeting last year, I found this series of talks very interesting. I feel re-inspired. What I mean by this statement is this…I often find myself in intellectual laziness slumps and I need experiences like these to recharge – to find other people with similar interests who want to participate in such discussions and who can also support us through those times when we are uninspired (or lazy, which can depend on point of view).

I’m just over halfway through my residency training. I’m also preparing materials and gathering letters of recommendations to apply to fellowships very soon. I also have peripheral thoughts of needing to start studying for boards, but that’s lower on my list after fellowship applications and publication submissions that I’ve put off writing for far too long. It’s easy during this long journey to become overwhelmed in addition to uninspired or lazy.

During the day, I work hard to approach my residency service tasks because patient care seems more imminently involved. But I need to get back to devoting one day during the weekend on non-service but also important residency-related tasks on my things-to-do checklist because despite how it may seem, I’m also passionate about them as well. What gets me more excited than networking at conferences such as these, is the opportunity to talk with experts about shared interests and possible collaborative projects…or at least the start of a friendship/mentorship where we can help each other move our healthcare system forward.

On another note, at the end of the week, after AACC is over, I will remain in Chicago to serve as the junior (resident) member of the College of American Pathologists (CAP) Council on Education (COE). I’m looking forward to our Friday night meeting dinner where we also have discussions that re-energize me as well in terms of working together to transform our profession for the better. I always feel privileged to be able to “pick the brains” of others who are intimately and actively involved in this endeavor over the casual setting of a delicious meal.

So, are you in an intellectual slump? If you need encouragement, feel free to email me at chungbm@rwjms.rutgers.edu and I hope to pay it forward and help you out of your slump or connect (I’ve always been a consummate “connector”…a quality from my grassroots organizing days, I suppose) you with mentors who might inspire you. If you are going to be in Chicago in early September, I also recommend that you attend the CAP Residents Forum on September 9, 2014 – you can register at www.thepathologistsmeeting.org or better yet, contact Jan Glas, head of resident engagement for CAP, at jglas@cap.org to become your program’s delegate and/or volunteer to serve on the credentialing committee and sign in delegates who attend the RF in September.

-Betty Chung, DO, MPH, MA is a third year resident physician at Rutgers – Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ.

First-RISE

There had been talk about it for some time. We even discussed the topic during the meeting of an ASCP committee that I served on previously. It’s the First-RISE. So, all of us senior residents know the RISE but this month, ASCP administered a slightly different test that is meant to test the new PGY-1 in their baseline knowledge compared to what is required for AP/CP training. Sometime next month, they will receive their test results just as we did our RISE scores this past spring.

I know that the First-RISE is not merely giving the RISE that we all know and love/hate to the first years…and that there are some topics on there that we just don’t see on our version of the RISE. But the idea is the same – to identify areas of strength versus weakness. Programs and residents can then take this information to devise personalized study plans or lists of topic areas to focus on more intently.

For those of you who are checklist people and/or disciplined studiers who stick to their “plans”, what is the best way to study? Do you think that First-RISE will assist program directors in helping to start off their first years on the right track? Do you think that First-RISE is meaningful?

-Betty Chung, DO, MPH, MA is a third year resident physician at Rutgers – Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ.

Third Year Questions

So, half of my residency training is complete. Surprisingly, I have learned more than I thought I knew but still feel behind where I think that I should be. Initially, grossing had been most difficult for me in terms of speed and time management. But I spent 3 months at the end of my 2^nd year at our highest-volume, most-difficult surgical pathology site and only now see the benefits of my training there. Many of the lessons I learned while at that site inform how I dictate and gross my specimens now. At my new program I do not have templates to follow or surgpath fellows to advise me how to gross as I had previously. Even though my chiefs will go over the specific nuances here that may differ from how I was previously trained, I am still given more autonomy than a first year because I can apply those lessons I must have subconsciously learned.

Even so, despite all that I have learned, the thought of taking boards in approximately one year still seems far away but not far enough away that I don’t feel like the volume of information to learn is not still overwhelming. First and foremost, my thoughts wander to the prospect of starting to study for AP/CP boards (but still procrastinating as of this moment due to work and still moving in).

Then the second equally big thought on my mind is that of fellowship applications in a couple months. I just recently started researching programs. We do not have a Common Match when it comes to pathology fellowships and we are also competing for spots with non-pathology residency trained physicians for subspecialties such as dermpath, clinical microbiology, and so on. CAP members last year gave a great webinar addressing how to prepare to apply for fellowships – a handout and recorded webinar can be found at http://www.cap.org/apps/docs/pathology_residents/pdf/q_a_fellowship_webinar.pdf and http://vimeo.com/70936253, respectively.

For those who have been in this spot before, any advice how to plan my third year and address these two big beasts – studying for the boards and fellowship applications?

-Betty Chung, DO, MPH, MA is a third year resident physician at Rutgers – Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ.