Pathologist Assistant vs Pathologist - What's the difference?
What's the difference between a pathologist and pathologist assistant (PA)?
A pathologist is a medical doctor who specializes in diagnosing surgical specimens through gross examination (i.e. looking at a specimen with their eyes) and also by looking at individual cells and parts of tissue under a microscope. From here they can tell if tissue is healing, inflamed, adapting, dying or if there is cancer.
A pathologist assistant on the other hand, is trained through a 2 year Master's degree to do the gross examination that a pathologist would normally have to do. This allows a pathologist to spend more of their time using their microscope to diagnose specimens instead of having to do all the work of grossing themselves.
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WHO AM I:
I'm a full time Pathologists' Assistant working in western Canada. I'm making videos about becoming a PA, giving you tips about school and letting you know what this career is like.
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Gastric adenocarcinoma by Ed Uthman, MD. https://www.flickr.com/photos/euthman.... CC BY 2.0.
Gastric adenocarcinoma by Ed Uthman, MD. https://www.flickr.com/photos/euthman.... CC BY 2.0
Gastric signet ring cell carcinoma histopatholgy (3). CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b..., via Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
Granular Cell Tumor, Sigmoid Colon, S-100 Protein Immunostain by Ed Uthman, MD. https://www.flickr.com/photos/euthman.... CC BY 2.0.
Cutaneous Lymphoma by Ed Uthman, MD. https://www.flickr.com/photos/euthman.... CC BY 2.0.
Cutaneous Lymphoma (Desmin Immunostain) by Ed Uthman, MD. https://www.flickr.com/photos/euthman.... CC BY 2.0.
The Charles C. Carson Center for Mortuary Affairs, at Dover Air Force Base (AFB), Delaware (DE), with twenty-three state of the art autopsy stations by CIV William M. Plate, Jr., USAF. https://picryl.com/media/the-charles-...