The Pathologist Pipeline

A shortage of physicians in the United States has been long projected. Because of predictions of retirement among the aging pathology workforce, there is an anticipated shortage of pathologist as well. To address the pathology workforce shortage among pathologists, the Association of Pathology Chairs assembled a subcommittee of the Association of Pathology Chairs Advocacy Committee to explore ways to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to the pathology workforce. One opportunity to encourage strong candidates to pursue pathology as a career is to explore possibility to revisit advanced credit for the post-sophomore fellowship. A survey that was designed to understand the post-sophomore fellowship training better was distributed on the listserv of the Program Directors Section of the Association of Pathology Chairs. A review of the literature on post-sophomore fellowship programs is presented in light of the findings from this survey. Many post-sophomore fellowship programs are run similar to a first-year resident experience, although programs show great diversity in curriculum, including some programs that focus on research. Post-sophomore fellowships attract medical students to the area of pathology and tend to end up in academic and research positions. A second survey of program directors served as an opinion poll of challenging issues that affect residency training. From the second opinion poll, most program directors feel that residents can use additional training to improve the outcome of our future pathologists.