Medical Student Education

The department of Pathology participates in the education of medical students throughout the four year curriculum.  In the first year, the department delivers a course in General Pathology.  Dr. Howard Fleit and Dr. Meenakshi Singh are the co-course directors.  An exhaustive review of the course has been recently concluded and updates to the course are ongoing by Drs. Fleit and Singh.  Twenty-five full time Pathology department faculty members teach various segments of the course.  In addition, eight voluntary faculty members from Winthrop University Hospital Pathology department teach in either the clinical pathology conferences or the laboratory sessions; two faculty members from the Northport VA medical center, and three faculty members from the Suffolk county medical examiner’s office.  Several other School of Medicine faculty members teach in components of the General Pathology course represented by the Departments of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Medicine, Pediatrics, and Radiation Oncology.  The course occupies 93 hours of the first year curriculum and utilizes multiple teaching modalities including lectures, interactive sessions, clinical pathologic conferences (CPCs), and laboratories.  The current enrollment (170) for the General Pathology course is comprised of 124 Medical Students, 39 Dental Students, and 7 Graduate Students. 

Systems-based Pathology is integrated within the Systems course that runs throughout the second year of the School of Medicine Curriculum.  Dr. Singh is the department representative on the Medical School System Committee.  The neuropathology component of the Neuroscience II course is provided by Dr. Roberta Seidman; the pulmonary pathology segment is provided by Dr. Philip Kane; cardiovascular pathology is taught by Drs. Kane and Frederick Miller; the renal pathology segment is taught by Dr. Miller; the reproductive pathology segment is taught by Drs. Carmen Tornos,  Jingxuan Liu, Kenneth Shroyer, Meenakshi Singh, and Cynthia Kaplan; the endocrine pathology segment is taught by Dr. Alan Heimann; the gastrointestinal pathology component is taught by Dr. Bernard Lane, and the connective tissue pathology segment is taught by Dr. Miller.

Fourth year medical students may take a course in Laboratory Medicine that is directed by Dr. Jay Bock.  In addition to Dr. Bock, eight Pathology faculty participate in this course, with eight faculty from the Department of Medicine, two from the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and one from Radiology.  In addition, fourth year students may take a neuropathology elective directed by Dr. Seidman.  Pathology faculty members also participate in clinical pathology conferences with the Department of Medicine or may lecture during the third year medicine clerkship.

Several of the Pathology faculty members have been recognized for their teaching accomplishments in the School of Medicine with the awarding of the school’s highest teaching award, the Aescalapius award for teaching (most recently, Dr. Howard Fleit in 2008), as well as Excellence in Teaching awards by the graduating class of medical students.  In addition, Pathology faculty members serve in leadership roles involving the management of the curriculum in the School of Medicine.