ABSTRACT
During pathology residency and fellowship, training follows the apprenticeship model. Residents and fellows work closely with fully qualified and licensed attending pathologists. Ideally, trainees receive diagnostic slides ahead of time and examine them on their own before reviewing them with their attending pathologist over a twoheaded microscope. Trainees thus have the chance to test their diagnostic skills and receive feedback from more senior practitioners. But, ubiquitous changes in medical practice threaten to impact this apprenticeship model of training. The need for training in new subdisciplines (for example, molecular diagnostics and informatics), the pressure to decrease turn-around times on cases, and the significant increase in caseloads and onservice time for attending pathologists limits the time available for teaching and learning basic skills in surgical pathology and subspecialities. Furthermore, medical centers are increasingly distributed environments, with attending pathologists and residents frequently changing services across hospitals, and even across cities, disrupting the traditional bonds of apprenticeship training.
