Residents and Fellows: Got Questions? ASCP’s Ask Me Anything Has Answers!

ASCP’s Ask Me Anything initiative is garnering inquiries from pathology residents and fellows from around the United States and other countries since it launched last August. 

An initiative of the ASCP Resident Council, Ask Me Anything provides pathology residents and fellows an opportunity to connect with practicing pathologists via ASCP’s online Pathologist-in-Training community.  

Raul S. Gonzalez, MD, a professor of pathology and director of the gastrointestinal pathology service at Emory University School of Medicine, in Atlanta, Georgia, served as the pathologist fielding questions last November.  

“I appreciated being invited to do this. It’s a great opportunity to interact with trainees at other institutions,” he says. “Teaching the next generation of pathologists is so important. They asked excellent questions.” 

“Social media has opened the doors to allow us to talk to people in our field all over the world,” he says. “I did my residency around 15 years ago when social media was not even a concept. Back then, exposure to attending physicians outside your institution was mostly limited to attending a national meeting, if you could bump into them.”  

In January, Zenggang Pan, MD, PhD, professor of pathology and director of hematopathology at the University of Colorado Anshutz Medical Campus, in Aurora, Colorado, served as the pathologist fielding questions. “Many asked questions about career development and some were curious about my training and studying in hematopathology,” he says, adding that an international medical student also asked some questions about “observership” opportunities in the United States. 

Residents also asked about common pitfalls when preparing to take the AP/CP board exams, while another was considering adding molecular pathology as a secondary aspect of her training because of its expanding importance in medicine. Still another resident asked about tips to manage stress during training.  

Overall, Dr. Pan says he was honored to be invited by ASCP Resident Council Chair Savanah Gisriel, MD, MPH, to be a guest respondent for Ask Me Anything. He got to know Dr. Gisriel when she was in residency at Yale University School of Medicine, where Dr. Pan had worked some years ago. 

It is of no surprise that Ask Me Anything has gotten such a robust response from residents and fellows. The opportunity to interact with seasoned pathologists who can respond to your questions in real time is like receiving a gift of their precious time. 

To find out more about the Ask Me Anything series, visit the Pathologist-in-Training community, part of the ASCP Communities.