Attendance and participation at conferences

There are currently five conferences that are mandatory for all CP residents.

i. Clinical Pathology Lecture Series

This is a weekly conference which begins in August and takes place on Thursdays from 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. in the Pathology Conference Room, Amory III. The speakers are predominantly from the Longwood Medical Area and encompass a variety of backgrounds. These conferences are directed towards teaching residents, but many technologists and staff also attend. Attendance usually ranges from 30-50 people and lunch is provided.

ii. CP Residents' Meeting

This weekly meeting is held Wednesday between 8:00 AM and 9:00 AM in the Clinical Pathology Conference Room located on the 3rd floor of the Amory Building. All residents participating in core rotations and advanced rotations as well as medical students doing the CP elective must attend. Breakfast is provided.
The format for these meetings will vary from week to week depending upon the schedule created by the CP Chief Resident. For certain specified meetings, either one of the CP residents or medical students doing a CP elective will present the conference. The topics for these presentations may be based on a question arising from a beeper call or topic of interest to the resident or student. Medical students should seek guidance and topic-approval from the CP Chief Resident. All presentations should be relevant to clinical pathology and laboratory medicine and limited to 45 minutes in length.
The last meeting of each month will be devoted to cases encountered by the residents during that month. Each resident will have approximately 15 minutes to discuss either interesting cases or beeper calls. For example, microbiology residents can discuss interesting plate rounds, the heme resident can discuss interesting flow results or smears, the blood bank resident can discuss interesting beeper calls, transfusion reactions or serology consults and the chemistry resident can discuss interesting calls or tests that needed approval. The presentations should be informal in order to promote discussion among the residents.
For meetings in which no resident or students are scheduled to present, guest speakers will be invited to discuss topics of general interest to the residents and students. The format for these meetings will vary from informal discussions to structured lectures depending on the speaker and the topic. The topics for these discussions/lectures will focus on practical issues relevant to laboratory medicine. All residents are encouraged to suggest topics and speakers for these meetings; however, final approval rests with the CP Chief Resident and Dr. Sacks.

iii. Gross-Micro Conference

This conference takes place on Thursday mornings from 8:00- 9:00 a.m. in the Pathology Conference Room. Two residents present, each giving a 30 minute talk.
All straight CP residents will be scheduled to give up to five of these presentations during their first two years. AP/CP residents will follow AP requirements. A list of previous topics is available on the computer in the AP resident's office and a list is on the wall to reserve a topic. Unusual topics must be approved by the Pathology Chair so please use your discretion.
After the two 30 minute presentations, a 5-10 minute presentation of an interesting case follows. Audience participation is encouraged to identify the diagnosis/problem. This is followed by the presenter giving a brief explanation on the topic. The AP chief resident will solicit volunteers through the E-mail or in person to present, so remember to collect interesting cases in your rotations.

iv. Medicine Morning Report

An important aspect of the residency is attendance by an assigned CP resident to the Department of Medicine morning report held each morning (see Appendix A for times). CP residents are assigned to attend on a rotating weekly basis. The conference is a learning experience for the CP resident and an opportunity to hear about interesting cases from the medicine teams. You should introduce yourself to the medicine chief resident on the first day you attend morning report. He or she will inform you of potential cases to be discussed, allowing you time to prepare material concerning pertinent laboratory aspects of the case for presentation if requested. In addition, the medical chief residents will contact you in advance if they would like you to present slides or data from specific cases. For presentations that require AP expertise, contact the AP chief resident who will arrange for an AP resident to assist. If you are unable to attend, it is your responsibility to arrange for someone to cover for you. Morning report must be covered every day.
In addition, first year residents will present a "Test of the Week" at every Friday morning report. This presentation will consist of two or three slides describing the methodology behind a particular test as well as its clinical utility. Primarily, the tests covered should be those suggested by the Medicine Chief Residents.

v. Medicine/Pathology Conference, Clinicopathological Conference

These conferences are held up to three times per month in the Carrie Hall conference room on Wednesday at noon. Up to 3 cases may be presented per conference and CP residents may present the laboratory aspects of selected cases. CP residents should inform the CP chief resident when an interesting case is encountered which may be appropriate for presentation. Alternatively, the medicine chiefs may contact you directly if they have an interesting case that they would like discussed. Medicine house-staff present the clinical aspects and CP residents provide a 5-10 minute discussion of the laboratory correlations of the case. Lunch is provided.

IV. CP RESIDENTS' ROOM

General

Each resident has a desk and file cabinet in the CP residents' room. Also available are phones for in-hospital and out of hospital calls, computer access, library materials, a slide projector and screen. While coat hooks have been sufficient in the past, a locker can be arranged (through Holly Bodman in Microbiology). Locks are suggested to protect valuables
Please keep the room neat (or at least limit the mess to your personal desk) since this room is often visited by prospective applicants.

Computers

Five personal computers running Windows and a Macintosh G3 PowerBook are available in the residents room. The Windows computers are linked to BICS, the hospital computer information system, and all are connected to printers. There is a Zip-drive on two of the windows computers and the Macintosh, and one of the windows computers has a CD/RW drive. Software available on these computers includes word processors, presentation and graphics programs, and spreadsheets. All desktop computers are connected to the Internet.
In addition, there is a computer resource center set up for the entire pathology department located in a separate room off the back of the chemistry laboratory. It contains several Macs and PCs attached to flatbed scanners, slide scanners, digital cameras, etc. Digital projectors for giving presentations as well as additional PowerBook's may be signed out from here. Residents may also use the 35 mm and digital cameras in anatomic pathology or in the clinical labs to photograph slides from interesting cases.
A special password is required to access the BICS system and may be obtained through John McCabe in laboratory administration. Passwords for outside, dial-up access to BICS may be obtained through John Fahey in pathology administration.
We have limited memory space on computer hard drives, so please backup important files on diskettes, your BICS account (H: drive), CD-RWs, or on zip discs (available in the AP Chief Resident's office). The equipment is ours and it is the responsibility of each of us to take care of it.

Library

The library in the residents room contains an assortment of textbooks, periodicals, and study tools. The library is for the benefit of the residents and is to be maintained by the residents. Dr. Tanasijevic's office has a supply of current journals which are filed in the bookcases for easy reference. The more recent articles (past 2 years) are the most difficult to find (often out to the binders in the Countway), and these should be kept available. Due to space limitations, journals more than 4 - 5 years old should be discarded.
Books should be signed out if they are to be borrowed or removed from the residents' room. Remember: This is your library so ensure you maintain it in proper order.
The medical library on the ground floor of the Thorn building is also available to clinical pathology residents.A valid Harvard ID is required to enter the Countway Medical Library at HMS. The valid ID also allows access to online journals. The most centralized and complete listing of available electronic resources can be found at http://www.ecommons.harvard.edu/. An excellent online clinical resource available to anyone connected to a BWH Computer is the Partners Handbook. It provides access to UpToDate (a wide-variety articles on many clinical subjects), the Physicians Desk Reference and numerous other materials. To find the Partners Handbook first go to the start menu, choose Partners Applications, then choose Clinical Applications and you should see the Partners Handbook. Finally, both Dial Up and High Speed Cable/DSL access to the partners system can be set up from home and is an invaluable resource to help in dealing with pages after hours or in accessing journals from home. Information can be found at http://www.rics.bwh.harvard.edu/faq/ras.php.