The fellowship program is at London Health Sciences Centre, London, Ontario, Canada.
Clinical service: The clinical service includes biopsy and resection specimens from the gastrointestinal tract, hepatobiliary system and pancreas (henceforth referred to as GI pathology). The material includes both in-house cases as well as consult material.
Research activity and publications: The fellow will be expected to participate in at least one on-going or new research project with the goal of publication, and where feasible, presentation at a national or international meeting.
Objectives: The overall objective is to educate the fellow such that he/she leaves the fellowship as an independent consultant GI/liver pathologist, having gained the necessary knowledge, technical skills, professionalism and diagnostic expertise required to function in this role.
Teaching: The fellow will participate in the teaching of residents, predominantly those doing GI pathology rotations. This will include the supervision of residents in grossing GI and liver specimens. The fellow will also participate in teaching residents at the Academic Half Day or Subspecialty Teaching Rounds. Medical student teaching may also be included.
Interaction with pathologists’ assistants: The fellow will be the primary resource person for pathologists’ assistants requiring guidance when grossing GI and liver specimens.
Daily case sign-out activities: The fellow will be responsible for reviewing gross and microscopic features of gastrointestinal and liver pathology cases and for writing diagnostic reports. For challenging cases, the fellow is expected to conduct appropriate literature searches. All cases will be reviewed by the supervising pathologist prior to sign-out.
Consults: The fellow will be responsible for reviewing all consult cases, working these up and constructing a report, in conjunction with the case pathologist.
Rounds and case conferences:
The fellow will be responsible for presenting cases at GI Clinical Teaching Rounds, Multidisciplinary Case Conferences, GI MDT Rounds, GI Team Rounds and Noon Rounds.
Independent sign-out and frozen section service: It is expected and highly desirable that the fellow participates in independent sign-out, typically in the latter half of the fellowship. Similarly, the fellow would be expected to participate in the departmental frozen section service. This is predicated on the need for appropriate licensure from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.
Evaluation: The fellow will be evaluated using the in-training evaluation report form on the One45 system, as per that used for residents in the program. Evaluations will be every 3 months. The fellow will also be encouraged to evaluate the fellowship program.