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Rotation Summaries - Clinical Pathology

Hematopathology at University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview

The purpose of this rotation is to learn the morphologic changes of neoplastic and non-neoplastic hematologic disorders in the blood, bone marrow, and lymphoid tissues. In addition, this rotation is designed to teach resident efficient and cost effective use of ancillary studies in conjunction with morphology to making appropriate diagnoses in hematopathology. The residents are also instructed in the proficient performance of bone marrow aspiration and biopsy procedures of the posterior iliac crests.

Supervisory Guidelines for Patient Care and Specimen Handling:

Daily Duties and Responsibilities:

Goals and Objectives:

Opportunities to Function as Consultant to Other Physicians:

Call Duties:

The resident is expected to be available to laboratory personnel, either in person or by pager, throughout the working day. No on-call duties outside of regular laboratory working hours are assigned to the resident. A hematopathology fellow/medical fellow specialist is on-call by pager after hours. All after-hour calls are supervised by the faculty who is on-call by pager and is available on site.

Communication with On-Duty Faculty:

Teaching faculty members on service are physically present during standard operating hours (8:00 AM - 5:00PM); specific faculty members when not physically present in the laboratory are available by phone or pager. At all times, a supervising faculty member is on call for evening and week-end questions. No final diagnosis is communicated to clinicians before a faculty member has evaluated the case.

Structured Formal Education in the Management of the Cytogenetics Laboratory:

The residents may also becomes involved in management issues, as they arise during the course of the workday. Some of these issues may be further discussed in the daily focused tutorial sessions with the teaching faculty.

Required Conference/Seminars:

Scholarly Activities and Research During Rotation:

Residents are provided with continuous access to literature searching programs. The expectation is that residents will utilize the medical literature to find up-to-date information on their cases. It is further expected that residents will utilize the medical literature to help provide our clinical colleagues with up-to-date knowledge related to the cases they complete. During sign-out of cases, the residents and teaching faculty discuss each case, both from a histologic perspective and a scholarly perspective. In discussing the latter, the resident and faculty discuss both normal and abnormal physiology and the mechanisms potentially responsible for creating the morphologic findings observed. It is hoped that these discussions will foster an interest in research and the development of new knowledge. Residents are encourage to become involved in research projects with the teaching faculty.

Basis and Method of Resident Evaluation:

Within the first month of the rotation, faculty in the Division of Hematopathology will meet with the residents to provide feedback, especially if there are any potential areas of difficulty.

The residents are provided with continuous feedback on their performance of daily activities (described previously), during the rotation. In general, only deficiencies are noted in writing. Residents are evaluated on their demonstrated ability to provide informative consultation to the clinical service teams, their medical knowledge, their application of this knowledge to efficient/quality patient care, and their microscopic diagnostic, technical and observational skills. Residents are also evaluated on their interpersonal skills, professional attitudes, reliability, and ethics with members of the teaching faculty, peers, laboratory staff, and clinicians. They are further evaluated on their initiative in fostering quality patient care and use of the medical literature, as it relates to their assigned cases. Their timely completion of assigned interpretive reports is another component of the evaluation. Residents on probation receive a written mid-rotation evaluation.

Educational Resources Available:

Computer Information Systems Available for Resident Education and Service Duties:

Patient data can be accessed by using three computer systems in the laboratory:

Literature searches can be performed via the network-based system in the Laboratory, via the computers in the residents' room, or via the computers in the University of Minnesota Biomedical Library.