Breast & GYN Pathology Fellowship Curriculum

We aim to train well-rounded sub-specialists in Women's Pathology to use the skills they learn during fellowship to provide optimal patient care in these fields, either in an academic or private practice setting.

Service

Fellows work under the supervision of a Breast and GYN pathology faculty member.

During the biopsy (Smalls) service (1A), you will review all the specimens assigned to the team, write provisional diagnoses, and hand off to faculty for sign out. After the first month, you will also order ancillary tests as needed.

During the Large rotation (1B/1C), you will work up and write up the diagnoses on surgical resection specimens. During the Frozen Section rotation, you will perform intra-operative consultations and call in the frozen section diagnosis to the surgeon.

You will be responsible for reviewing all outside consultations cases for Breast and GYN pathology, comparing your diagnosis with that of the outside hospital/institution, and reviewing with the attending pathologist. Your diagnostic competency is assessed by the concordance rate between their diagnosis and that of the faculty.

During the second half of your fellowship, you'll function as junior attending for a period of 4 months during which, you will be assigned a certain number of cases (both larges and smalls) and will be expected to complete the cases for sign out before reviewing them with the supervising faculty. On these cases, you will take all the calls from the clinicians and call in unexpected findings or make critical calls to the clinicians.

You are continuously assessed for graded increased responsibility and greater autonomy. Since fellows are expected to have a full Massachusetts State license and hospital credentials, after a satisfactory first quarter evaluation you may be able to perform independent frozen section evaluation with indirect supervision always available.

Fellows do not take night or weekend calls.

Teaching

You play a key role in training residents, working alongside them and supervising them in grossing specimens and frozen section evaluation. You will double scope cases with junior residents, especially in the first half of the year, and explain pertinent histologic findings.

In addition, you will present quarterly gross conferences to residents, as well as two journal clubs and two seminars based on a literature review or a personal research project focused on their subspecialty (one in breast and one in GYN for each conference).

Pathology fellows also participate in the teaching of medical students when they rotate through pathology as part of their month long elective or Flexible Clinical Experience.

Laboratory Management

You will attend lectures in laboratory management given as part of the curriculum for pathology residents.

You will discuss lab issues relevant to breast and GYN services at meetings of medical lab directors with supervisors and managers. You will also be attending departmental quality improvement meetings, and will be required to conduct a quality assurance study and present it at one of those meetings.

You will also be involved in CAP inspections, either as self-inspectors or as members of the Baystate CAP inspection team for outside institutions.

Research

Fellows are expected to conduct a research project and present their data at one of the national pathology meetings.

Mandatory Conferences

In addition, you are required to attend mandatory breast and GYN-related conferences throughout the entire year.