Description
January 19, 2026
New York Times: The Rise of the Self-Serve Blood Test
Pathoverse Part 6: DeepLIIF Virtual Restaining for Scalable, High-Accuracy Pathology AI
Death, Sex, and Money Podcast: Autopsies are in decline
Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.
Transcription
More Americans are skipping the doctor's office and ordering blood tests on their own. But is it safe? And autopsies once revealed the truth behind half of hospital deaths. Now they're nearly extinct. These stories and more coming up. This is Path News Network Daily Edition from the College of American Pathologists. I'm Nancy Johnson. It's Monday, January 19th. Self-serve lab tests are booming, promising consumers more control over their health, but raising new concerns among pathologists. In a New York Times story, 51-year-old Kimberly Crisp learned her blood sugar and cholesterol were climbing. She wanted answers without immediately turning to medication. A company called Function offered her more than 160 blood and urine tests for a few hundred dollars, far more testing than she'd get. in a typical annual checkup. I spoke with the CAP's Dr. Mark Fung, who's the Director of Point of Care Testing at the University of Vermont Health.
There probably will be plenty of stories of patients saying, aha, I found something that was missed. There's also going to be stories of patients with chronic diseases that want cheaper testing or are trying to keep down their costs so they know what they're looking for and might benefit from it.
The company Function is part of a growing wave of direct-to-consumer testing, joined by large reference labs like Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp that offer these self-serve tests appealing to people who feel ignored by the traditional health system. These AI-generated lab reports can empower patients, but Dr. Fung urges caution.
With direct-to-consumer, you have one less layer of guidance. Patients don't know about sensitivity or specificity. They don't necessarily understand false positive or false negative results.
Critics warn that extensive testing can surface false positives, trigger anxiety, and lead to unnecessary treatments, especially without a physician guiding next steps. And if there is a life-threatening lab result from one of these self-serve tests, Dr. Fung questions what the process is. for addressing the patient's health.
Certainly as part of the College of American Pathologists accreditation for our labs, if a patient has a critical lab result, we do have a requirement to ensure that some kind of provider is contacted to reach out to ensure that there's no impending danger or harm that might be occurring with regards to the patient's condition.
The CAP says direct-to-consumer laboratory testing can empower patients but needs to be properly safeguarded. The CAP's position is that patients are generally best served when tests are ordered by a physician who can determine what testing is appropriate and guide diagnosis and treatment. A new artificial intelligence platform called DeepLIFT is moving from research labs into real-world clinical use. It's promising faster and more consistent cancer diagnostics in pathology and surgery. Developed at Memorial Sloan Kettering, the technology virtually restains standard pathology slides, improving accuracy for hard-to-interpret biomarkers like HER2 and PD-L1. DeepLIF is now available through the CAP's AI studio, where pathologists can test the tool at no cost and see results in milliseconds. Researchers say the system could soon help process more than 100 patients thousand clinical slides a year and expand access to advanced digital pathology worldwide. The CAP is hosting an in-person molecular pathology and cytogenetics inspector training seminar in Baltimore on March 10th. This is happening during the ACMG annual clinical genetics meeting. The session is designed for pathologists, PhDs, clinical laboratory scientists and trainees involved in inspecting molecular and cytogenetics laboratories. Led by CAP faculty Dr. Chad Galdarisi and Dr. Erica Olgaard, the seminar will cover inspection preparation, compliance requirements, and best practices for evaluating testing such as next-generation sequencing and inherited disease assays. Registration is required. and you can earn CME credit. And finally, back in the 1950s, half the people who died in U.S. hospitals had autopsies performed. Today, that percentage is in single digits and pathologists say that loss matters. On this episode of the podcast, Death, Sex, and Money, a forensic and pediatric pathologist joins a novelist for a dialogue making the case for why pathology is so important. post-mortem exams still matter. They talk about how real autopsies differ vastly from the ones you see on popular TV shows, and you'll hear about the quiet reverence for the deceased. It's a conversation about pathology, storytelling, and why understanding death still teaches us how to live. That's all for today. Be sure to check the show notes for more information on today's stories. Watch your email inbox for more news like this in the CAP's advocacy newsletter every Tuesday and our weekly edition newsletter on Thursdays. We're back tomorrow at 5 a.m. Eastern for another episode of The Daily Edition. I'm Nancy Johnson. Have a great day.
Description
January 19, 2026
New York Times: The Rise of the Self-Serve Blood Test
Pathoverse Part 6: DeepLIIF Virtual Restaining for Scalable, High-Accuracy Pathology AI
Death, Sex, and Money Podcast: Autopsies are in decline
Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.
Transcription
More Americans are skipping the doctor's office and ordering blood tests on their own. But is it safe? And autopsies once revealed the truth behind half of hospital deaths. Now they're nearly extinct. These stories and more coming up. This is Path News Network Daily Edition from the College of American Pathologists. I'm Nancy Johnson. It's Monday, January 19th. Self-serve lab tests are booming, promising consumers more control over their health, but raising new concerns among pathologists. In a New York Times story, 51-year-old Kimberly Crisp learned her blood sugar and cholesterol were climbing. She wanted answers without immediately turning to medication. A company called Function offered her more than 160 blood and urine tests for a few hundred dollars, far more testing than she'd get. in a typical annual checkup. I spoke with the CAP's Dr. Mark Fung, who's the Director of Point of Care Testing at the University of Vermont Health.
There probably will be plenty of stories of patients saying, aha, I found something that was missed. There's also going to be stories of patients with chronic diseases that want cheaper testing or are trying to keep down their costs so they know what they're looking for and might benefit from it.
The company Function is part of a growing wave of direct-to-consumer testing, joined by large reference labs like Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp that offer these self-serve tests appealing to people who feel ignored by the traditional health system. These AI-generated lab reports can empower patients, but Dr. Fung urges caution.
With direct-to-consumer, you have one less layer of guidance. Patients don't know about sensitivity or specificity. They don't necessarily understand false positive or false negative results.
Critics warn that extensive testing can surface false positives, trigger anxiety, and lead to unnecessary treatments, especially without a physician guiding next steps. And if there is a life-threatening lab result from one of these self-serve tests, Dr. Fung questions what the process is. for addressing the patient's health.
Certainly as part of the College of American Pathologists accreditation for our labs, if a patient has a critical lab result, we do have a requirement to ensure that some kind of provider is contacted to reach out to ensure that there's no impending danger or harm that might be occurring with regards to the patient's condition.
The CAP says direct-to-consumer laboratory testing can empower patients but needs to be properly safeguarded. The CAP's position is that patients are generally best served when tests are ordered by a physician who can determine what testing is appropriate and guide diagnosis and treatment. A new artificial intelligence platform called DeepLIFT is moving from research labs into real-world clinical use. It's promising faster and more consistent cancer diagnostics in pathology and surgery. Developed at Memorial Sloan Kettering, the technology virtually restains standard pathology slides, improving accuracy for hard-to-interpret biomarkers like HER2 and PD-L1. DeepLIF is now available through the CAP's AI studio, where pathologists can test the tool at no cost and see results in milliseconds. Researchers say the system could soon help process more than 100 patients thousand clinical slides a year and expand access to advanced digital pathology worldwide. The CAP is hosting an in-person molecular pathology and cytogenetics inspector training seminar in Baltimore on March 10th. This is happening during the ACMG annual clinical genetics meeting. The session is designed for pathologists, PhDs, clinical laboratory scientists and trainees involved in inspecting molecular and cytogenetics laboratories. Led by CAP faculty Dr. Chad Galdarisi and Dr. Erica Olgaard, the seminar will cover inspection preparation, compliance requirements, and best practices for evaluating testing such as next-generation sequencing and inherited disease assays. Registration is required. and you can earn CME credit. And finally, back in the 1950s, half the people who died in U.S. hospitals had autopsies performed. Today, that percentage is in single digits and pathologists say that loss matters. On this episode of the podcast, Death, Sex, and Money, a forensic and pediatric pathologist joins a novelist for a dialogue making the case for why pathology is so important. post-mortem exams still matter. They talk about how real autopsies differ vastly from the ones you see on popular TV shows, and you'll hear about the quiet reverence for the deceased. It's a conversation about pathology, storytelling, and why understanding death still teaches us how to live. That's all for today. Be sure to check the show notes for more information on today's stories. Watch your email inbox for more news like this in the CAP's advocacy newsletter every Tuesday and our weekly edition newsletter on Thursdays. We're back tomorrow at 5 a.m. Eastern for another episode of The Daily Edition. I'm Nancy Johnson. Have a great day.
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Description
January 19, 2026
New York Times: The Rise of the Self-Serve Blood Test
Pathoverse Part 6: DeepLIIF Virtual Restaining for Scalable, High-Accuracy Pathology AI
Death, Sex, and Money Podcast: Autopsies are in decline
Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.
Transcription
More Americans are skipping the doctor's office and ordering blood tests on their own. But is it safe? And autopsies once revealed the truth behind half of hospital deaths. Now they're nearly extinct. These stories and more coming up. This is Path News Network Daily Edition from the College of American Pathologists. I'm Nancy Johnson. It's Monday, January 19th. Self-serve lab tests are booming, promising consumers more control over their health, but raising new concerns among pathologists. In a New York Times story, 51-year-old Kimberly Crisp learned her blood sugar and cholesterol were climbing. She wanted answers without immediately turning to medication. A company called Function offered her more than 160 blood and urine tests for a few hundred dollars, far more testing than she'd get. in a typical annual checkup. I spoke with the CAP's Dr. Mark Fung, who's the Director of Point of Care Testing at the University of Vermont Health.
There probably will be plenty of stories of patients saying, aha, I found something that was missed. There's also going to be stories of patients with chronic diseases that want cheaper testing or are trying to keep down their costs so they know what they're looking for and might benefit from it.
The company Function is part of a growing wave of direct-to-consumer testing, joined by large reference labs like Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp that offer these self-serve tests appealing to people who feel ignored by the traditional health system. These AI-generated lab reports can empower patients, but Dr. Fung urges caution.
With direct-to-consumer, you have one less layer of guidance. Patients don't know about sensitivity or specificity. They don't necessarily understand false positive or false negative results.
Critics warn that extensive testing can surface false positives, trigger anxiety, and lead to unnecessary treatments, especially without a physician guiding next steps. And if there is a life-threatening lab result from one of these self-serve tests, Dr. Fung questions what the process is. for addressing the patient's health.
Certainly as part of the College of American Pathologists accreditation for our labs, if a patient has a critical lab result, we do have a requirement to ensure that some kind of provider is contacted to reach out to ensure that there's no impending danger or harm that might be occurring with regards to the patient's condition.
The CAP says direct-to-consumer laboratory testing can empower patients but needs to be properly safeguarded. The CAP's position is that patients are generally best served when tests are ordered by a physician who can determine what testing is appropriate and guide diagnosis and treatment. A new artificial intelligence platform called DeepLIFT is moving from research labs into real-world clinical use. It's promising faster and more consistent cancer diagnostics in pathology and surgery. Developed at Memorial Sloan Kettering, the technology virtually restains standard pathology slides, improving accuracy for hard-to-interpret biomarkers like HER2 and PD-L1. DeepLIF is now available through the CAP's AI studio, where pathologists can test the tool at no cost and see results in milliseconds. Researchers say the system could soon help process more than 100 patients thousand clinical slides a year and expand access to advanced digital pathology worldwide. The CAP is hosting an in-person molecular pathology and cytogenetics inspector training seminar in Baltimore on March 10th. This is happening during the ACMG annual clinical genetics meeting. The session is designed for pathologists, PhDs, clinical laboratory scientists and trainees involved in inspecting molecular and cytogenetics laboratories. Led by CAP faculty Dr. Chad Galdarisi and Dr. Erica Olgaard, the seminar will cover inspection preparation, compliance requirements, and best practices for evaluating testing such as next-generation sequencing and inherited disease assays. Registration is required. and you can earn CME credit. And finally, back in the 1950s, half the people who died in U.S. hospitals had autopsies performed. Today, that percentage is in single digits and pathologists say that loss matters. On this episode of the podcast, Death, Sex, and Money, a forensic and pediatric pathologist joins a novelist for a dialogue making the case for why pathology is so important. post-mortem exams still matter. They talk about how real autopsies differ vastly from the ones you see on popular TV shows, and you'll hear about the quiet reverence for the deceased. It's a conversation about pathology, storytelling, and why understanding death still teaches us how to live. That's all for today. Be sure to check the show notes for more information on today's stories. Watch your email inbox for more news like this in the CAP's advocacy newsletter every Tuesday and our weekly edition newsletter on Thursdays. We're back tomorrow at 5 a.m. Eastern for another episode of The Daily Edition. I'm Nancy Johnson. Have a great day.
Description
January 19, 2026
New York Times: The Rise of the Self-Serve Blood Test
Pathoverse Part 6: DeepLIIF Virtual Restaining for Scalable, High-Accuracy Pathology AI
Death, Sex, and Money Podcast: Autopsies are in decline
Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.
Transcription
More Americans are skipping the doctor's office and ordering blood tests on their own. But is it safe? And autopsies once revealed the truth behind half of hospital deaths. Now they're nearly extinct. These stories and more coming up. This is Path News Network Daily Edition from the College of American Pathologists. I'm Nancy Johnson. It's Monday, January 19th. Self-serve lab tests are booming, promising consumers more control over their health, but raising new concerns among pathologists. In a New York Times story, 51-year-old Kimberly Crisp learned her blood sugar and cholesterol were climbing. She wanted answers without immediately turning to medication. A company called Function offered her more than 160 blood and urine tests for a few hundred dollars, far more testing than she'd get. in a typical annual checkup. I spoke with the CAP's Dr. Mark Fung, who's the Director of Point of Care Testing at the University of Vermont Health.
There probably will be plenty of stories of patients saying, aha, I found something that was missed. There's also going to be stories of patients with chronic diseases that want cheaper testing or are trying to keep down their costs so they know what they're looking for and might benefit from it.
The company Function is part of a growing wave of direct-to-consumer testing, joined by large reference labs like Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp that offer these self-serve tests appealing to people who feel ignored by the traditional health system. These AI-generated lab reports can empower patients, but Dr. Fung urges caution.
With direct-to-consumer, you have one less layer of guidance. Patients don't know about sensitivity or specificity. They don't necessarily understand false positive or false negative results.
Critics warn that extensive testing can surface false positives, trigger anxiety, and lead to unnecessary treatments, especially without a physician guiding next steps. And if there is a life-threatening lab result from one of these self-serve tests, Dr. Fung questions what the process is. for addressing the patient's health.
Certainly as part of the College of American Pathologists accreditation for our labs, if a patient has a critical lab result, we do have a requirement to ensure that some kind of provider is contacted to reach out to ensure that there's no impending danger or harm that might be occurring with regards to the patient's condition.
The CAP says direct-to-consumer laboratory testing can empower patients but needs to be properly safeguarded. The CAP's position is that patients are generally best served when tests are ordered by a physician who can determine what testing is appropriate and guide diagnosis and treatment. A new artificial intelligence platform called DeepLIFT is moving from research labs into real-world clinical use. It's promising faster and more consistent cancer diagnostics in pathology and surgery. Developed at Memorial Sloan Kettering, the technology virtually restains standard pathology slides, improving accuracy for hard-to-interpret biomarkers like HER2 and PD-L1. DeepLIF is now available through the CAP's AI studio, where pathologists can test the tool at no cost and see results in milliseconds. Researchers say the system could soon help process more than 100 patients thousand clinical slides a year and expand access to advanced digital pathology worldwide. The CAP is hosting an in-person molecular pathology and cytogenetics inspector training seminar in Baltimore on March 10th. This is happening during the ACMG annual clinical genetics meeting. The session is designed for pathologists, PhDs, clinical laboratory scientists and trainees involved in inspecting molecular and cytogenetics laboratories. Led by CAP faculty Dr. Chad Galdarisi and Dr. Erica Olgaard, the seminar will cover inspection preparation, compliance requirements, and best practices for evaluating testing such as next-generation sequencing and inherited disease assays. Registration is required. and you can earn CME credit. And finally, back in the 1950s, half the people who died in U.S. hospitals had autopsies performed. Today, that percentage is in single digits and pathologists say that loss matters. On this episode of the podcast, Death, Sex, and Money, a forensic and pediatric pathologist joins a novelist for a dialogue making the case for why pathology is so important. post-mortem exams still matter. They talk about how real autopsies differ vastly from the ones you see on popular TV shows, and you'll hear about the quiet reverence for the deceased. It's a conversation about pathology, storytelling, and why understanding death still teaches us how to live. That's all for today. Be sure to check the show notes for more information on today's stories. Watch your email inbox for more news like this in the CAP's advocacy newsletter every Tuesday and our weekly edition newsletter on Thursdays. We're back tomorrow at 5 a.m. Eastern for another episode of The Daily Edition. I'm Nancy Johnson. Have a great day.
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