Surgical Pathology Fellowship Curriculum

Two one-year positions are available in BCM’s surgical pathology fellowship. Ben Taub Hospital and Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center are the two main hospitals that provide learning opportunities for this fellowship.  Ben Taub Hospital is one of the county hospitals within the Harris Health System located in the Texas Medical Center.  This institution averages ~16000 specimens/ year, and provides hands-on and allows residents and fellows to cut and perform their own frozen sections. Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center is a private hospital specializing in complex surgical resections with ~16000 specimens/ year.  This provides a dynamic and large variety of surgical specimens for fellows to learn from including thoracic pathology.  The hospital also has a prominent transplant service, exposing fellows to transplant biopsies and explant specimens. Both hospitals see large volumes of breast, gynecologic, and gastrointestinal specimens, allowing us to provide the opportunity to fellows to do a subspeciality-focused fellowship in these areas.

In addition, fellows will be responsible for monitoring and mentoring residents and medical students on surgical pathology rotation with them. 

The fellow’s schedule is divided into thirteen four week blocks from July 1 to June 30.  Each block focuses on a surgical pathology subspecialty, allowing the fellows to do an in-depth review of specimens and frozen sections related to that organ system.  Elective rotations in Placental, Thoracic, Genitourinary, Renal, Molecular, Cytopathology, and Dermatopathology are also available.

Fellows have three weeks of vacation time and can take vacation days during any time frame, but with approval of the site rotation director. Fellows are also instructed to inform the director about vacation two weeks in advance.

View an example of a fellow’s schedule with a gynecologic pathology focus.

The didactic schedule includes several lectures for surgical pathology.

• Resident Morning Conference (daily)
• Interesting Case Conference (twice per month)
• Cytology Noon Didactics (monthly, optional)

Fellows are also required to prepare two lectures of their choice over the course of the fellowship.

Fellows are encouraged, and expected, to prepare one or more abstracts for presentation at annual national or international pathology meetings.