Overview and Mission
Founded in 1875, St. Christopher's Hospital for Children is a major provider of pediatric tertiary care to children from Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley, the fourth largest urban community in the U.S. The program is designed to provide the pathologist-in-training with the skills required to practice pediatric pathology in an academic or private setting.
Clinical Training
The program is centered at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, a private, tertiary care pediatric hospital that is the pediatric teaching hospital for the Drexel University College of Medicine.
The strengths of the program include electron microscopy, nephropathology, transplantation pathology (kidney, liver), neuropathology, tumor pathology, congenital heart disease, cytogenetics, molecular diagnostics, virology, bacteriology, chemistry, hematology, and transfusion medicine. Staff members belong to the faculty of Drexel University College of Medicine. Residents from Drexel University College of Medicine and Temple University rotate through St Christopher's and are under the supervision of the chosen applicant who will be assuming the role of chief resident.
Research Training
The fellow is encouraged to write up or participate in the writing of at least one research paper based on cases encountered during training. The anatomic pathology department has 1,861 square feet of diagnostic laboratory space and is located on the ground floor of the hospital in a modern building constructed in 1990. The fellow's office is adjacent to a 288-square-foot library/conference room. The conference room houses an eight-headed Olympus teaching microscope, a video camera/high-definition monitor/microscope set-up for conference projection of microscopic slides to large groups, and a slide projector and built-in screen.
All equipment is available to the fellow for both service work and research. The department employs three full-time, well-trained histotechnologists that can perform special stains, immunohistochemistry, and technical aspects of electron microscopy. The department covers funding of small projects. Grants from the foundation may be required to fund bigger projects.
Education
The major focus of the training program is pediatric anatomic pathology. The fellow is responsible for the prosection and completion of every autopsy that occurs during the year, with the exception of those that occur during vacations or weekends off service. Under the direct supervision of the attending pathologist, the fellow is responsible for all aspects of the pediatric autopsy, including chart review, prosection, and dissection of organs, and completing the clinical, gross, microscopic, and neuropathologic summaries and the final clinic pathologic correlation. As the fellow gains experience and skill during the year, he or she is given more autonomy in performing autopsies and communicating the results to clinicians.
The fellow also has surgical pathology responsibilities during most of the year, with the exception of the months spent in clinical pathology and in perinatal pathology. When on the surgical pathology service, the fellow is responsible for following each case from point of accession to final sign out. The fellow is expected to reach a conclusion and a diagnosis and to answer all pertinent questions that may arise from a pathological lesion found. When necessary, the fellow is expected to research difficult cases through reading and computer database searching.
The fellow is responsible for gross dissection, gross description, and initial review of microscopic sections prior to sign-out with the attending pathologist. It is the fellow's responsibility to provide a clear written diagnosis, with a microscopic description when indicated. In addition, the fellow is responsible for keeping track of all pending cases and ancillary studies, and for reviewing drafts and coding. At all times, an attending pathologist will be available to answer questions and assist with difficult cases. When cases require ancillary studies such as frozen section, immunocytochemistry, electron microscopy, cytogenetics, touch imprints, or special handling, the fellow is expected to be able to assess the situation, make preliminary decisions, follow up on cases, and interpret the results.