Pathology reports dictate patient treatment, and management decisions often have prognostic implications. So, any pathologist must master the art of report writing. These reports should be concise, consistent, and contain all the information to guide our surgeon and oncology colleague to act upon. As a trainee and newly practicing pathologist, it can be a daunting task to find the right balance navigating through a large number of cases and at the same time writing a good pathology report in a given amount of time. We felt this struggle as a trainee and early career pathologists.
Then we thought if we could create a framework with all this information and all possible scenarios where one can modify the reports as per the need. That’s when we started creating and compiling surgical templates that we accumulated during our training and then organized them systematically, which one can use as plug and play. It’s like driving autopilot. I want to give a disclaimer; one must keep in mind that you are still driving it.
There are many tables, templates, and easy-to-find information. Each diagnosis is accompanied by a microscopic description, speech-to-text commands, and short texts that can be inculcated into the Laboratory information system. This information will also be available on “Ace My Path.com,” where one can search for the keyword and find the required diagnosis, edit the template as per the need and use it in the report. We believe any pathology resident on surgical pathology service would like this information with them when writing the reports. I truly believe this book will help develop a solid foundation on creating a good pathology report and provide a framework to work upon so one can develop their style as a new trainee or early career pathologist.
“Like I always say, it’s a team effort. A lot of behind-the-scenes work goes in when we’re at home.” This book is another example of a team effort, and this quote by Jordan Spieth summarizes it very well.