Tata Medical Center Fellowship Program

Fellowship in Oncologic Pathology

The Department:

The Tata Medical Center (TMC) is a newly set-up state of art comprehensive cancer centre and research establishment in Kolkata, India. The center is a philanthropic initiative aimed specifically at helping cancer patients from the east and northeast of India and neighboring countries. The department of laboratory sciences is currently staffed by consultants in hematopathology, histopathology and cytopathology. In addition being a comprehensive diagnostic laboratory we have consultants in clinical microbiology & virology, clinical chemistry, cytogenetic, molecular genetics and histocompatibility & immunogenetics. Consultants in histopathology have subspecialty training in cytopathology, gastrointestinal, hepatobiliary, soft tissue, head & neck pathology and interest in almost every area of oncopathology. The department is equipped with state of the art laboratory equipments like fully automated histopathology workstation, fully automated immunohistochemistry system, cryostat, cyto-centrifuge, auto-stainers, liquid-based cytology systems etc. In addition number of modern equipment has been installed in cytogenetics and molecular genetics to complement oncopathology diagnosis.

Fellowship Objectives:

The primary objectives of the fellowship will be to train fellows to achieve diagnostic skills in cancer histo-pathology and write clear, throrough and concise pathology reports and interact with clinicians. Fellows will be encouraged to engage in research projects, publish papers and present at national and international meetings.

No of Fellowship Positions:

Three

Fellowship Duration:

The fellowship will be for one year with option of extension for a second year. Eligibility Criteria

Essential:

M.D. (Pathology) or D.N.B. (Pathology)

Tata Medical Center Fellowship Program

Desirable:

Candidates with an academic bent of mind and having posters/publications at national / international meetings will be given preference.

Clinical responsibilities:

• Daily review and sign-out of cases:

• The fellow will perform real-time review of cases involving specimens accessioned and obtained from in house surgery, in house endoscopy, in house fine needle aspiration, and extramural consultation related to surgical pathology.

• The fellow will responsible for gross examination of specimens. The fellow will review the cases first without the faculty, and attempt to render diagnoses. Final discussion and sign-out with the faculty will follow on a multiheaded microscope. It is expected that the fellow will exercise gradually increasing responsibility in signing out of cases on their own, with decreasing levels of supervision by the faculty.

• The fellow will prepare, present, and discuss cases at interdepartmental conferences attended by the faculty and fellows of the Department of Surgery, radiation oncology and medical oncology.

• The fellow will be expected to understand the important aspects of gross dissection of specimens related to surgical pathology.

Academic responsibilities:

• The fellow will be encouraged to assist in ongoing research projects and to develop their own research projects. The options for the fellow include clinical images, clinical case reports, clinical case series, or basic science research.

Expected Rotations/Work Schema:

• 10 months in histopathology including all areas GI, GU, GYN, Head and Neck, Breast, Bone and Soft tissue, Pulmonary, Skin, Brain and Hematolymphoid systems, with two months of cytopathology .

• If the fellow decides to stay for second year; the second year can be structured per the candidates’ interest and would include 10 months subspecialty training in 2 areas and two months of rotation in molecular genetics and cytogenetic laboratory on solid tumors and research elective.

Tata Medical Center Fellowship Program

Opportunities for career advancement:

The fellowship will offer him careers in histopathology sections of large diagnostic laboratories in corporate hospitals, faculty in pathology in academic medical institutions and as tumor histopathologists in oncology centers.

Evaluation:

(EVALUATION PROCESS WILL BE COMMON TO ALL)

• In addition to the departmental review which is common to all departments, the fellow will be evaluated by the following means:

• informal daily oral examination at microscopy during review of cases

• informal oral examination during daily intradepartmental morning conferences and monthly interdepartmental conferences

• formal midterm written examination

• formal final written examination

Contact this candidate