Melissa P. Upton, MD, FASCP, Installed as 2018-2019 President of the American Society for Clinical Pathology

Melissa P. Upton, MD, FASCP, was installed as 2018-2019 President of the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) during the Society’s Annual Meeting held Oct. 3-5 in Baltimore.  

Dr. Upton is Professor Emeritus of Pathology at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. She continues to practice surgical pathology, autopsy pathology, and cytopathology, and she is one of the specialists at the University of Washington in the areas of GI, liver, and pancreatic pathology.

“I am truly honored to have been elected as an officer of ASCP, a society that represents the entire medical laboratory team and impacts health care around the globe,” she said. “I see ASCP as the premier organization where laboratory professionals, including pathologists, work in teams to develop better patient care, training, and communication, based on respectful collaboration, creative thinking, and joy in our work.”

Dr. Upton is board certified in anatomic pathology and cytology and directed an autopsy service and forensic pathology fellowship program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. She has also practiced cytopathology and general surgical pathology, and has focused on genitourinary pathology, head and neck pathology, and gastroenterology (GI) and liver pathology. From 1982-85 and 1987-2002, Dr. Upton lived in Boston and taught at Tufts, Boston, and Harvard Universities. Since 2002, she has been at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, where she formerly directed the GI and Hepatic Pathology Service (2003-2016), the Pathology Residency Program (2014-2016), and the UW GI and Hepatic Pathology Fellowship (2003-2011). From 2002 through June 2010, Dr. Upton was associate director of the Anatomic Pathology Division at the University of Washington Medical Center. Her publications encompass a broad range of anatomic pathology, and, more recently, she has focused in GI and liver pathology, and in oral squamous carcinoma. She is a member of the Permanent Scientific Committee of World Organization for Specialized Studies of Diseases of the Esophagus.

Currently, she is Continuing Medical Education (CME) Editor for the American Journal of Clinical Pathology, developing CME/self-assessment modules. At ASCP, she has served on the Publications Committee, the Maintenance of Certification Committees, and the Pathology Recertification Individualized Self-Assessment Committee, creating materials to aid pathologists in maintaining certification and updated knowledge. She is past-chair of the ASCP Commission for Continuing Professional Development.

Dr. Upton received her doctor of medicine degree and completed an anatomic pathology residency as Chief Resident at Northwestern University Medical School. She completed a pediatric pathology fellowship at the Children's Hospital in Boston. Afterward, Dr. Upton spent two years in Tokyo as the Nakasone Research fellow in pathology at the National Cancer Research Center, studying immunohistochemistry and molecular pathology.