University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
6431 Fannin Street
Houston, Texas 77030
713.500.5402
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS WEBPAGE IS NOT ENDORSED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HEALTH SCIENCE CENTER AT HOUSTON OR BY THE DEPARTMENT OF PATHOLOGY AND LABORATORY MEDICINE.
FOR UPDATED AND ACCURATE INFORMATION REGARDING RESIDENCY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF PATHOLOGY AT UT HOUSTON, PLEASE VISIT THE DEPARTMENTAL WEBSITE:
https://med.uth.edu/pathology/education/residency-program/
Anatomic and Clinical Pathology Residency Program[]
The University of Texas at Houston offers a 4 year AP/CP ACGME accredited residency program. The program offers rotation in different clinical settings such as Academic (Memorial Herman Hospital), Harris County (LBJ Hospital), and private practice (St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital). Rotation at other local institutions are offered (The Methodist Hospital, MD Anderson Cancer Center).
Program Director: William F. Glass, MD, PhD, MBA
Total Positions: 28
Positions per year: 6 - 7
Average work hours on surg path? 55 hrs/week
Pros: CP, great interaction and rotations with other institutions in the Texas Medical Center. We share our strengths with eaach other.
Cons: Lack of fellowships
Do you feel you have:
Adequate preview time? Yes. Adequate support staff (P.A.’s, secretarial, etc.)? Yes, 2 PAs each at LBJ and Memorial Hermann Hospital.
Adequate AP Teaching? Yes. Adequate CP Teaching? Yes
Opportunities for faculty mentorship: Numerous faculty members (around 55) and 27 residents;
Opportunities to teach /mentor medical students: available; the Physician Educator Certificate Program is available for the residents interested in getting involved in teaching rotating medical students and junior residents.
Support for conferences: Faculty members are always present with the residents during the multi-disciplinary conferences
Didactic conferences: Daily morning conferences from 8 to 9am; protected time for the residents
Strongest rotations: Clinical Pathology rotations
Fellowship: All the graduating residents go for subspecialties
Schedule on Surgical Pathology: LBJ hospital: 3 days schedule (grossing day, biopsies day (preview slides), resections day (preview slides)
Memorial Hermann hospital: subspecialty rotations (grossing week, GYN/Breast pathology week, GI pathology week, Head and Neck/GU pathology week)
Calls schedule: First year residents cover only day calls (7am to 7pm) for Clinical Pathology on the weekends and the holidays (they are shadowed by an upper level on the first 3 day calls) they are responsible of apharesis procedures, blood bank calls and blast calls; the night calls are covered by the upper level residents (PGY2, 3, 4) from 7pm to 7am; there is a resident that cover the CP calls and another resident covers the AP calls for the frozen sections
Procedures: Apharesis (photopheresis, plasmapheresis, RBC exchange), immediate assesment on cytology rotations
Presentations responsibilities: Grand rounds, autopsy conferences, AP/CP journal clubs, Med-Rad-Path conferences, tumor boards, city-wide conferences (only the upper-level residents), boot-camp conferences for the first year residents, frozen slides conferences, unknown slides conferences
Digital slides: Whole slide scanners are available for the residents and used for some unknown conferences by the faculty members
Autopsy: All the residents have 4 rotations on the autopsy service (2 Pathology assistants) and one rotation at the Medical Examiner office, everyone get their 50 cases
Faculty and directors: Open door policy
Evaluation: the faculty members and the residents receive an evaluation at the end of every rotation; face to face feedbacks are also provided by Faculty members for the rotating resident
Book fund: 800$ annualy; and 200$on the book fund for every published manuscript
Extracurricular activities: Annual intradepartmental retreat for the residents and faculty members for a weekend; outdoor activities and bonding between the residents and the attendings
Cardiovascular Pathology Fellowship[]
Positions per year: 1
Director: L. Maximilian Buja, MD
Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine,
Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
7000 Fannin Street
Houston, TX 77030
L.Maximilian.Buja@uth.tmc.edu
Renal Pathology Fellowship[]
Positions per year: 1
Director: William F. Glass, MD, PhD, MBA
Professor & Vice Chair for Graduate Medical Education
Director of the Pathology Residency Program
Director of Renal Pathology Services
William.F.Glass@uth.tmc.edu
Dermatopathology Fellowship[]
Program Director: Ronald Rapini, MD (Chair of Department of Dermatology)
Positions per year: 1
Program length: 1 year
CAP Standardized Fellowship Application Accepted: No
AAMC Universal Application Form Accepted: Yes
Please mail the completed application form and have three letters of reference forwarded to:
Irene Morales, Residency Coordinator, Irene.M.Morales@uth.tmc.edu,
Dept of Dermatology, 6655 Travis St, Suite 980,
Houston, TX 77030.
Phone 713-500-8330.
Overview[]
Dermatopathology is a new fellowship at the UT Medical School as of July 2006, although we had an active program in the past under the same director from 1989-1994. The fellowship is a joint endeavor between the Departments of Dermatology and Pathology, but the program coordinator and program director (Ronald P. Rapini MD) are situated in the Department of Dermatology. We are accredited for one fellow per year, and this is a one year program. Please be advised that there are two other separate dermatopathology fellowship programs in Houston with which we have some joint teaching activities in dermatology or pathology: (1) MD Anderson Cancer Center, and (2) Baylor College of Medicine. You may wish to apply to those programs also, because dermatopathology is very competitive. Most of the skin specimens (about 20,000 per year) are examined at our independent laboratory at the Houston Medical Center (HMC) location at 6655 Travis Street, every afternoon. Our fellows with a dermatology background receive training in general pathology in the mornings for 6 months at Hermann Hospital and 6 months at Methodist Hospital. Fellows with a pathology background receive training in general dermatology for 12 months (in the mornings) primarily at our HMC outpatient clinic. Candidates for the fellowship must have completed ACGME-accredited programs in either Dermatology or Pathology prior to beginning the Dermatopathology Fellowship. There is no match program in dermatopathology.[1]
Comment 1[]
Comment posted 01/2011. Based on my experiences/rotations with UTH dermpath during 2007-2010.
Dr. Rapini[]
I spent 2 elective months with Dr. Rapini. He is a fantastic teacher and great mentor...and he very funny and a genuinely nice guy. As a derm trained dermpath, his clinical/treatment perspectives are very insightful and I considered this a big plus for the program.
Derm vs Path Trained Fellows[]
He takes one fellow per year and my understanding is that he typically tries to alternate between derm trained and path trained fellows (don't know if this is necessarily a hard and fast rule). The fellow for 2010 is derm trained, 2011 is path trained. Derm trained fellows do surg path in the mornings at UT Houston and also at The Methodist Hospital, both of which are 5-10 min walk from the dermpath office. Path trained fellows spend mornings in derm clinics, both at UT Houston and at MD Anderson.
Sign Out[]
Sign out starts around 1pm each afternoon and is typically done by 5pm most days, depending on case load (this was my experience when I was there in 2008). Sign out is done at a multihead scope with Dr. Rapini (on Mon and Wed), the fellow, and usually 1-2 derm residents and often one to several path residents, med students, observers. Dr. Rapini often asks those at the scope to take turns giving their thoughts on cases and then he will discuss his thoughts...this is the best part of the day. Lots of great teaching in a very open setting. I thoroughly enjoyed signing out with him each day. On Tues/Thurs/Fri, several other dermpaths take turns covering sign: Dr. Ken Tsai, Dr. Maribel Colome, and Dr. Val Thomas (all three are great to work with).
Lectures/Conferences[]
Monday morning is dermpath conference for the derm residents. This is presented either by Dr. Rapini or the fellow. Tuesday afternoons there is usually a dermpath fellows/consensus conference held either at Baylor or MD Anderson (alternates by week), which the fellows and dermpath attendings all try to attend. Each dermpath program brings its most interesting/difficult cases to the conference; thus each of the Houston dermpath programs (Baylor, UTH, and MD Anderson) get exposure to the cases and faculty from the other programs (this is a big plus for training in Houston, I think).
Other Thoughts[]
Dr. Rapini has an enormous recut collection of dermpath cases...over 10,000 slides (these are available for residents and fellows to review).
One additional consideration is that the fellow is not always required to preview the cases before sign out, although sometimes time for previewing was available. As a rotating resident, I didn't have a comprehensive view of this for the whole year, so take this with a grain of salt.
Bottom Line[]
I would highly recommend this dermpath fellowship to anyone. 5 stars in my opinion.
User:Jerad M Gardner, MD 04:59, January 24, 2011 (UTC)