When one hears “Artificial Intelligence” – what comes to mind? For some, it may be Terminator-style beings or rogue artificial life forms. In Pathology, however, AI is bringing enhanced patient care and improved satisfaction to pathologists, patients, and clinicians alike. In a recent article in CAP Today, Michigan Medicine’s Department of Pathology was highlighted for its advanced digital pathology workflows. Drs. Ul Balis and Mustafa Yousif described the process for initiating digital pathology into our standard of care, which required significant advanced facilities planning, research, development, and investments.
Multidisciplinary team collaboration is essential in clinical research, as it brings diverse expertise and perspectives to enhance the comprehensiveness and quality of studies. Our recent publication “Performance of Arima Genomic Sequencing Classifier in Binary Subcategories of Atypia of Undetermined Significance Thyroid Nodules: Single Versus Repeated Diagnosis” in Thyroid®, a prestigious official journal of the American Thyroid Association, exemplifies this approach. Authored by Drs. Xiaobing Jin (the first author), Madelyn Lew, Amer Heider, and Xin Jing (senior author), as well as Brian Smola, CT, and a group of clinicians specialized in thyroid diseases, this study represents a significant collaboration between cytopathologists and clinicians. It highlights the importance of multidisciplinary teamwork in advancing medical research and achieving impactful publications.
At the University of Michigan, we constantly uncover new career options that many of us never realized existed. One of these is our Medicolegal Death Investigators. The Department of Pathology is home to eight Medical Examiner Investigators (MEIs), six of which are Diplomates of the American Board of Medicolegal Death Investigators (D-ABMDI): Chelsea Cammarata, Lindsay Crater D-ABMDI, Edward Farrugia D-ABMDI, Jessica Hagan D-ABMDI, Eric LaPres D-ABMDI, Monique Micallef D-ABMDI, Troy Murrish D-ABMDI, and William Piper RN, MSN.
In 1985, the field of toxicology, the study of various drugs, metals, and poisons in the body, was reporting research on how to measure cannabinoids in the blood, calculate blood alcohol levels, and the dangers of using propylene glycol as part of intravenous injections. It was also the year that the Department of Pathology welcomed a new member to their toxicology laboratory, medical laboratory professional Brian Wright. Wright had just graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor’s degree in Medical Technology and Microbiology. His interest in pathology was sparked by performing scientific testing on biological specimens during his undergraduate training.
If at any point you worked or trained in the Department of Pathology at the University of Michigan, you likely had an opportunity to work alongside some of the most highly regarded pathologists and staff in the world. We are lucky to have so many dedicated mentors in our department, who have devoted themselves to enhancing the lives and careers of our trainees. Three of these mentors have affected hundreds of trainees over the years, namely Henry Appelman, MD, Barbara McKenna, MD, and Joel Greenson, MD. These three outstanding pathologists, teachers, and mentors were pioneers in our world-renowned gastrointestinal pathology service.
Imagine you are a patient who just had a biopsy completed. You wait nervously for the results and check your patient portal to see if any results have been received. After an anxious couple of days, you receive the results, only to read them and have no idea what they mean. It is Friday afternoon, your doctor’s office is closed, and you fret all weekend. This scenario plays out frequently and was the impetus for a research study conducted by Dr. Cathryn Lapedis and colleagues.