The Challenge of Education and Training in Pathology: The Basle Response

Summary The aim of pregraduate teaching is to form young physicians who are masters in the art of observation and of biological reasoning, two faculties for which pathology is particularly suitable as a teaching instrument. In Basle we teach general pathology in the 3rd year in lectures and in coordinated histology courses which are programmed. Thus, the student following his booklet with sketches, works up some slides, each step guided by questions which he has to answer in order to go on. In the 4th year the same schedule is followed for special pathology, which in the 6th year is applied at autopsy demonstrations. At these demonstrations a clinician first discusses the clinical history with the students thus preparing the questions which the pathologist has to answer by demonstrating his findings on color television. In other courses the students receive the clinical data and a week later a real clinico-pathological conference is held. Finally pathology is taught in small groups with fresh and formalin-fixed specimens. A great number of audiovisual courses are at the disposition of the students. We use them exclusively for repetition and not for initial teaching. The most important thing for a young pathologist is to learn how to work up biopsies including the knowledge where to find necessary help in the literature, an understanding of the clinical problems, and the precise final diagnois. In doing autopsies he must be able to understand and answer the clinical questions as well as to see the scientific problems. The programme spans 5 years including 1 in clinical work. During the 4 years in pathology the young pathologist, according to a schedule, rotates from one specialist to the other working up the biopsies under supervision. The attendance of several slide seminars organized by the society of pathology is compulsory. The young pathologist does about 300 autopsies and learns how to work up autopsies of junior colleagues. For self-education we prepared audiovisual courses with microscopic sets of slides. The main point in postgraduate education is the conviction of all permanent members of a department that teaching is one of our most important tasks, since with a thorough education of the next generation we are significantly helping to produce better pathologists.