Is this possible for a pathologist?

[arielvslotus]

1. To live and work in Toronto. This is the most important thing.

2. To manage my own practice, or join a partnership, without having any academic appointments or obligations ie no research. Do pathologists even do this?

3. To do some clinical work like skin biopsies, bronchs, GI, FNA etc. Again is this possible for a pathologist?

 

If it is possible, what program would set me up best for this. What ones should I avoid. If I can't do these things I'm picking another field to apply to.

[thebouque]

Anatomic pathology is such a fascinating field.

[cheech10]

1. To live and work in Toronto. This is the most important thing.

2. To manage my own practice, or join a partnership, without having any academic appointments or obligations ie no research. Do pathologists even do this?

3. To do some clinical work like skin biopsies, bronchs, GI, FNA etc. Again is this possible for a pathologist?

 

If it is possible, what program would set me up best for this. What ones should I avoid. If I can't do these things I'm picking another field to apply to.

 

1 - Live/work in Toronto. Of course. After any residency this should be possible.

2 - Non-academic work is prevalent at community hospitals. Most pathologists in the community don't do research and don't have academic appointments. Again, any program should prepare you well for this.

3 - Clinical work. Skin biopsies (I assume you mean punch biopsies?) and FNAs are probably available, although you'd have to lobby hard to get skin biopsies referred to you instead of dermatologists. Both require little formal training (although plenty of practice helps, esp with FNAs). Any program should be able to give you this exposure, especially if you plan your elective time with these goals in mind (ie. Derm, etc.). There is also further dermatopathology training available at some programs, though I don't know the details.

 

Bronchoscopy and endoscopy are different, particularly endo. You would need to get OR time or endo suite time for these, and I suspect most hospitals would examine the credentials for a pathologist closely if they wanted to these. Plus you would need to be able to manage any complications (eg. chest tubes for pneumothoraces, dealing with colonic perforation, pulmonary hemorrhage). To be honest, I think you'd have a tough time getting patients referred to you for these procedures as a pathologist, as most will want a respirologist or gastroenterologist (or general surgeon) to continue managing the patient after the pathology results are back. You'd also have a similar problem with skin biopsies.

[thebouque]

If you wanna do sweet pathology and interpret those beautiful slides and gross (as in macroscopic) specimens, why would you want to scope someone????? You can get yourself a basement, turn off the light and explore it with a flash light!

[olecranon]

in vancouver there are zero jobs for pathologists.

[Bancroft]

Pathology jobs are becoming scarce in Toronto as well. It's "possible" to get a job here after residency, but most graduates should expect NOT to get jobs in Toronto or in the close surrounding area.

 

Partnership/private work is uncommon in Canada (more common in US). Most paths are salaried and work for the hospital - work in the community and there will be no research obligations.

 

Any sort of patient contact is extremely rare in path. Sure, everyone has heard of that one pathologist doing FNA, but that's like no more than 1% of paths in the whole country - and there is no sign of pathologists taking on more of this work. So, if you're interested in patient contact, pathology is not the right field for you.

 

B