- Elizabeth McMahon
Coming up, a discovery targeting cancer-driving proteins once thought undruggable, and an online job prep boot camp for new and experienced pathologists without long runs and push-ups, screaming drill sergeants not included.
Welcome to the Path News Network Daily Edition from the College of American Pathologists. I'm Elizabeth McMahon. It's Wednesday, December 17th, and here are the headlines.
Community, connection, collaboration. Three C's that play a critical role in your pathology career. Nowhere do these elements come together more than at the annual CAP conference. Nearly a thousand pathologists gathered at CAP25 in Orlando this year to celebrate the profession and learn the latest in research and innovations. Next year, Wynn Las Vegas will be your retreat for three days of cutting-edge sessions and networking, starting October 3rd. When you're not taking advantage of the offerings on the conference floor, the Wynn has top-tier amenities and restaurants for side conversations, socializing, and fun. Register for CAP26 on the CAP homepage.
For years, scientists have known that the protein with the memorable name IGF-2B-P3 fuels aggressive forms of acute leukemia. But researchers were unable to find a drug to disable it. Until now. A team led by CAP member Dr. Dinesh Rao, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at UCLA, has discovered a small molecule that inhibits the protein from binding to its RNA targets. First, the team found the molecule after running 200,000 compounds through a high-throughput screening system. A second analysis identified the molecule that slowed leukemia cell growth dramatically in mice. Their study, published in the journal Hematologica, is a step toward finding treatments for what were long considered undruggable RNA-binding proteins in a wide range of cancers.
Are you making plans for continuing education in 2026? Put the CAP's Clinical Pathology Improvement Program, or CPIP, at the top of your list. There are a host of courses for the busy practicing pathologist, including the latest in transfusion management. This CPIP course will give you information on successful patient blood management initiatives, from blood ordering practices to conservation techniques and anemia management and interventions. Continue your education and get CME credits with this and 11 other online CPIP courses. Find the registration link in our show notes.
Finally, boot camp isn't a word you'd associate with pathology training, but when you're just starting out, Now. Learning the ropes in a laboratory can be tough and rigorous. Luckily, the CAP's Job Prep Bootcamp, now open for registration, is packed with information you need in a busy practice, minus the rope climbs and pull-ups. I spoke with Dr. Yasmeen Butt, chair of the CAP's New in Practice Committee, about how these online, interactive courses serve new and experienced pathologists. So who should consider participating in Job Prep Bootcamp, and what is the goal?
- Dr. Yasmeen Butt
So the job prep bootcamp is aimed at people who are either just starting out in their new jobs or have just started in a new job or those that are transitioning to a new job that might have new and additional responsibilities that you perhaps haven't practiced in before. The idea behind the job prep boot camp is not to serve as a board review course or to create subspecialists in any particular field. That's what fellowships are for. The concept behind this boot camp is to give you a pragmatic overview of general pathology in both anatomic pathology as well in clinical pathology, with the latter focusing more on call-related topics.
- Elizabeth McMahon
I'm curious about what the bootcamp entails. How broad are the topics you cover?
- Dr. Yasmeen Butt
So in addition to covering bread and butter, surgical pathology, as well as call-related topics in clinical pathology, the bootcamp also serves to address several other more soft-type topics, including laboratory management. managing your new career, your personal finances, learning about billing and coding. So there's a broad breadth of additional topics outside of actual clinical practice.
- Elizabeth McMahon
As a practicing pathologist at Mayo who's led these sessions previously, what are the real takeaways from the boot camp?
- Dr. Yasmeen Butt
I think one of the benefits of this is nothing quite like this exists, covering the broad breadth of material that we do. It's not trying to prepare you for a test. It's not... trying to prepare you to become a GI pathologist, for example. I think the value of this course is if you're, and this is how we put it to our faculty when we were recruiting them, if you're a subspecialty expert in field X, and then you take on a new job that's going to require you to sign out in field Y and Z, you may be somewhat familiar with that, of course, because you had to study for boards, but to sit down with an expert to give you... these are the pragmatic things that you need to know. This is how you cannot fall on your face when you're signing out, say, GI pathology if you trained as a subspecialty expert in GU pathology.
- Elizabeth McMahon
Job prep boot camp sessions run May 2nd through 3rd and May 16th through 17th. That wraps up today's Daily Edition. You can find more details on all these stories in our show notes. Don't miss our advocacy newsletter on Tuesdays and our weekly edition newsletter on Thursdays. We'll be back tomorrow at 5 a.m. Eastern. You can subscribe to this show on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. I'm Elizabeth McMahon. Have a great day.