Anatomic Pathology at NIH

[Adesua2012]

Hello guys,
I was wondering if anybody on here is training or has trained at the anatomic pathology residency at NIH. I'm an MD/PhD considering anatomic pathology but with eventual basic science research aspirations. However I've heard some unfavorable comments about the NIH anatomic pathology program. How similar or different is it from pathology programs at major research universities like UPenn, WashU, UCSF, MGH etc. Any other comments about the NIH program is welcome. Cheers.

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[Ombret]

This is second hand and anecdotal, but when I was a resident we had a surgpath fellow who had done AP at NIH and was a rock star. I've never heard anything else about it good or bad. Looking at their web page, apparently there is a funded postdoc year option. They say they will pay you as PGY-2 which means your PhD can start paying for itself. Sounds pretty promising.

 

[cjw0918]

I know a number of NIH AP trained former residents. They are definitely on the research side more than diagnostician side. The volume they see at NIH is very skewed and not representative of normal surg path. They tend to think everything is something weird or exotic in my experience. I suppose because they see a lot of weird stuff at NIH. They are very bright, however. Just mostly in that research-y sort of way if you know what I mean.

 

[mlw03]

One of my attendings in residency was an NIH guy from back in the day (like 60s or 70s), trained AP-only. He was the guy that exists in every department - good researcher, but weird and can't really diagnose much so they put him on the autopsy service. He was OK in that capacity, but had zero surg path diagnostic skills. As in, he once made me bring an ovarian serous cystadenoma to a gyn attending, and once made me take a straightforward thyroid PTC to our head and neck guys.

So my impression based on this admittedly limited n is they produce researchers at the NIH, not too many true diagnostic pathologists.