"Clinicians want specific things from a pathology consultation. They want a short turnaround time and a clear and coherent report, which can be discussed with the patient and correlates with the clinical findings. Unfortunately, this does not always come to pass, particularly with some smaller or disrupted specimens, resulting from minimally invasive surgery.

It takes a cultural change to reach that balance between what pathology and pathologists are, and what the perception about the field is. Medicine has changed dramatically in recent years regarding disease understanding and test diagnosis. In the past year, pathologists played a crucial part during the COVID-19 pandemic and the laboratory medicine field has taken huge responsibility in our hospitals to support every clinical department. Addressing the pathologist’s role on the patient care team should be addressed in medical school early on."

Albert Alhatem is a pathology resident.

He shares his story and discusses the KevinMD article, "Is pathology an ATM machine?" (https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2021/01/is-pathology-an-atm-machine.html)