CAPcasts

The Inaugural Pathologists Leadership Summit took place during the unprecedented circumstances of a global pandemic and for the first this year’s CAP Hill Day was completely virtual. This setting provided some unique challenges, as well as some unexpected benefits. We spoke with Amanda C. Herrmann, MD, FCAP, who recently received the CAP Foundation Development Leadership Award and participated in the CAP’s hill day for the first time. She shared what she took away from the experience and how it can be used in future advocacy as the world slowly gets back together again.

It is never too early or too late to plan the direction of your career and consider your professional legacy. This includes finding meaning and value in your work and relating them to physician engagement and burnout, explains Sarah Bean, MD, FCAP, who is teaching a course on this topic at CAP21, “Setting Career Direction: Using Personal Leadership to Ignite the Flame and Keep It Going.” CAP21 will be held Sept. 25-28, for more information, please visit capannualmeeting.org and follow #cap21 on social media.

The incidence of cyberattacks on health care systems is increasing both in the United States and internationally. It has been said that it isn’t a matter of if an institution will be affected by a cyber attack, it is really a matter of when. It is important that pathologists understand the impact of a cyberattack and recognize how to implement operational and risk-mitigation processes in response to an extensive, long-lasting IT system outage, explains Andrew Goodwin, MD, FCAP, who will be teaching a course on this topic at CAP21, which will be held Sept. 25-28 (https://www.capannualmeeting.org/). Dr. Goodwin is a pathologist and Division Chief of coagulation at the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington.

In this CAPcast, Digital Content Committee Chair Michael Misialek, MD, FCAP, leads a discussion about ongoing professional practice evaluation (OPPE) and focused professional practice evaluation (FPPE). The discussion features three fellow CAP members: Brian Le, MD, FCAP, a pathologist with Novant Health in Charlotte, North Carolina; Moira Larsen, MD, FCAP, an Executive Director of MedStar Medical Group Pathology in the Baltimore/Washington DC region, and Erin Rubin, MD, FCAP, a pathologist and professor of pathology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

More information is available in this resource, "Making Sense of OPPE and FPPE": https://capatholo.gy/3fI6MIE. For more information about practice issues impacting pathologists, please visit the Practice Management section of CAP.org: https://www.cap.org/member-resources/practice-management.

While there is a diversity of laboratory information systems available, there is no one system used by bio-banks. Furthermore, there is an increased utilization of digital whole-slide scanning technology in converting slides made from biobanking into digital whole slide images.

In this CAPcast, Duke Medical Center pathology resident Dr. Richard Davis interviews leading pathology informatics expert Dr. Raj Dash about biobanking and its integration with various LIS technologies. Dr. Dash is also at Duke Medical Center.

For more information about biobanking, please visit the Biorepository Accreditation Program section on CAP.org: https://capatholo.gy/3rzSPkg.

As science learns more about the SARS-CoV-2 antibody and related patient testing, the CAP continues to evolve their programs to support laboratory testing, as Drs. Susan Fink and Danyel Tacker explain in this CAPcast.

Susan Fink, MD, PhD, FCAP, is an Assistant Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Washington in Seattle. She is also the Assistant Director of the University of Washington Medical Center Clinical Immunology Laboratory.

Danyel H. Tacker, PhD,(ABCC), is an Associate Clinical Professor of Pathology at West Virginia University. Danyel serves as section director of the Chemistry and Clinical Mass Spectrometry Laboratories, and the CLIA Laboratory Director of Blood-Gas Laboratories, at the WVU Hospital; she is also CLIA Laboratory Director of the Fairmont Medical Center Hospital Laboratory.

Visit the COVID-19 page on the CAP’s web site for the latest news and resources, including those for proficiency testing customers and CAP-accredited laboratories (https://capatholo.gy/38HjAZh). The COVID-19 page offers useful links to helpful tools and resources to clarify rules of compliance as you implement COVID-19 testing in your laboratory. You can order the SARS-CoV-2 Serology PT program today. The program code is COVS.

In this CAPcast, we’ll speak with Diane Cardona, MD, FCAP, Chair of the Quality and Clinical Data Registry Affairs Committee, about why eligible pathologists should consider MIPS participation as a strategy to help protect revenues as well as a strategy to demonstrate their value instead of seeking a COVID exemption.

In this CAPcast we are joined by Joe Saad, MD, FCAP, vice chair of the Council on Government and Professional Affairs, and Walter Klein, MD, FCAP, who has participated in virtual lobbying meetings with his members of Congress and has attended previous CAP Hill Days. They will get into greater detail and give pathologists tips on how to conduct a virtual meeting with a senator or representative in Congress.

Absolute Eosinophilia: A Practical Approach is the latest activity from the CAP’s Clinical Pathology Improvement Program, also known as CPIP (https://capatholo.gy/3aIYr4K). This activity describes a pragmatic approach for the workup of eosinophilia, including the appropriate application of molecular genetic studies, explains on of the CPIP case authors, Vandita Johari, MD, FCAP, in this CAPcast interview.

Implementing the CAP Cancer Protocols can help to ensure the completeness of pathology reports and higher-quality pathology evaluation. Further, using the Cancer Protocols (https://www.cap.org/protocols-and-guidelines)can help to ensure pathologists are practicing consistent with current best-practices. In this CAPcast episode, Yale Pathology’s Dhanpat Jain, MD, FCAP, discusses how cancer protocols benefits his practice, particularly the protocol that guides the diagnosis of esophagus related cancers.