Experiential exposure as the key to recruiting medical students into pathology

Ashley M Holloman; Mary P Berg; Bronwyn Bryant; Lisa Ross Dixon; Melissa R George; Julie Katz Karp; Barbara Ec Knollmann-Ritschel; Victor Gerardo Prieto; Charles F Timmons; John Michael Childs; Amanda Lofgreen; Kristen Johnson; Cindy B McCloskey

doi:10.1016/j.acpath.2023.100074

Experiential exposure as the key to recruiting medical students into pathology

Acad Pathol. 2023 Apr 13;10(2):100074. doi: 10.1016/j.acpath.2023.100074. eCollection 2023 Apr-Jun.

Affiliations

¹ Baylor College of Medicine, Department of Pathology & Immunology, Houston, TX, USA.
² University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus, Department of Pathology, Aurora, CO, USA.
³ Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA.
⁴ Graduate Medical Education, Physician Services Group, Gainesville, FL, USA.
⁵ Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Penn State Health Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA, USA.
⁶ Department of Pathology, Anatomy, and Cell Biology, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
⁷ Department of Pathology, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD, USA.
⁸ Department of Pathology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA.
⁹ Department of Pathology, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Pathology, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, MD, USA.
¹¹ College of American Pathologists, Northfield, IL, USA.
¹² The University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, Department of Pathology, Oklahoma City, OK, USA.

Abstract

Medical student interest and pursuit of a career in pathology have been steadily declining since 2015. We conducted three separate surveys of medical students to better understand these trends. In our first survey, we focused on assessing U.S. allopathic medical students understanding and perceptions of pathology. We later surveyed U.S. osteopathic medical students as a companion to the allopathic medical student survey, in which many similarities were discovered with some key differences. In our final survey, we specifically looked at curriculum differences between the U.S. allopathic medical schools that graduate the most students who enter pathology training programs (Group 1) versus those schools that graduate the fewest future pathologists (Group 2) to determine if the curriculum had an impact on medical student matriculation into pathology. Together, through these surveys, we were able to identify several remarkable recurring trends, presenting areas of targetable action. Here, we summarize themes from the three studies as well as a review of pertinent literature to offer best practices for exposing and engaging medical students to pathology and possibly recruiting students to consider pathology as a career.

Keywords: Career; Education; Experiential learning; Medical student; Pathology; Specialty choice.