Department of
Pathology, Anatomy and Laboratory Medicine

Practice Based Learning

  • Residents show the ability to analyze their practice experience and perform practice-based improvement activities using a systematic methodology, including:
    • Evaluating their gross reports for diagnostic and typographical errors (all PGY levels).
    • Assessing slides for technical and staining quality (PGY2-4).
    • Residents are given results of their concordance with staff diagnoses and are expected to use this information to direct their learning toward improving their diagnostic acumen (all PGY levels).
    • Senior residents actively participate in monthly Anatomic Pathology Quality Assurance Committee meetings, learning how to identify and report on a variety of QA monitors (case turnaround time, frozen section discrepancies/deferrals, histology quality monitors, amended/addended cases, cyto-histologic correlation, etc.) (PGY3-4).
  • Residents show ability to locate, appraise, and assimilate evidence from scientific studies related to patients’ health care problems, including:
    • Perform literature search and review to find relevant scientific references to aid in the workup of surgical pathology cases (computer-based searches) (all PGY levels).
    • Obtain and incorporate information about their patient population (via Copath computer searches and medical records chart review) for clinicopathologic study of selected diseases (all PGY levels).
  • Residents are able to apply knowledge of study designs and statistical methods to the appraisal of clinical studies and other information on diagnostic and therapeutic effectiveness (PGY3-4).
  • Residents demonstrate competency in the use of information technology to manage information, access on-line medical information, and support their own education, including:
    • Accessing of patient clinical information and previous pathology accessions via Medsite and Copath (all PGY levels).
    • Performance of computer searches of the medical literature (all PGY levels).
    • Utilize digital imaging technology (all PGY levels).
    • Access web sites pertaining to specific pathologic diagnoses (grading systems for tumors, etc.) (all PGY levels).
  • Residents actively participate in the teaching of medical students and other health care professionals rotating through the anatomic pathology section, including:
    • Teaching medical students as lecturers, leaders in small groups and laboratory sections (PGY4).
    • Teaching medical students and residents from other disciplines during surgical specimen gross description and dissection (PGY2-4).

Evaluation

  • Rotation evaluation
  • Review of resident portfolio yearly to assess improvement and discuss self-education