7 Reasons to Bring a Pathology Clinic to Your Healthcare Organization

Pathology clinics are springing up at healthcare clinics and hospitals around the country. Whether virtual or drop-in, these clinics offer patients one-to-one face time with a pathologist to answer questions, clarify treatment options, and generally support patient care. 

These clinics can also support the field of pathology as a whole, making it more visible and demystifying the role of pathology in healthcare. 

Here, pathologists offer seven reasons why a healthcare organization should consider bringing a pathology clinic to your site. 

1. Pathology clinics improve patient care 

The single most compelling reason to bring a pathology clinic to your healthcare center or hospital is that it can improve patient care, according to Anne Buckley, MD, PhD, associate professor of Neuropathology in the Department of Pathology at Duke University Medical Center. 

The open-ended, less rushed nature of the clinics give patients time to ask detailed questions and receive thorough answers, Dr. Buckley says. “Patients invariably say that I'm the first doctor who has taken the time to really answer all of their questions and they know much more about their disease after.” This not only allows them to process aspects of their illness but also to think carefully through treatment options and outcomes. 

“Then the patient is much happier and much calmer and feels better looked after in general,” she says. 

2. Pathology clinics empower patients in their own healing 

Being diagnosed with an illness or cancer can be terrifying, anxiety-provoking and overwhelming, acknowledges Thomas J. Cummings, MD, professor of Pathology and professor of Ophthalmology, also in the Department of Pathology at Duke University Medical Center. 

A specialist in neuropathology, focusing on brain tumors and pathological diseases of the eye, he has found that showing patients their biopsies under a microscope and explaining treatments has a powerful effect on their healing journey. 

“I think it empowers patients so they can now visualize what the cells look like that have turned malignant. This is something they can't get from their oncologist or their surgeon or their family doctor.” 

3. Pathology clinics lighten the load for other providers 

Because patients often have a tremendous number of questions and anxieties, the clinics make the patients “much more well-informed,” Dr. Buckley says. 

“When your patient talks to a pathologist, they've already had a lot of their questions answered. And so it lightens the workload on these complex patients.” 

Not only does this save primary care providers time and effort, Dr. Buckley finds that this added layer of care and input helps patients feel especially well cared for. “We're an additional way into the system and we always tell them, if you get stuck in the bureaucracy, just give us a call and we’ll see what we can do.” 

4. Pathology clinics cost little to establish 

Dr. Buckley refers to pathology clinics as “a fairly low-cost endeavor.” Most of them are not housed in a separate space and require no additional resources other than the pathologist’s time. Dr. Buckley even makes herself available as needed through email and phone. 

“It’s flexible and there is a code to bill for it, and we can put notes in the chart so it's not that heavy a lift anymore,” Dr. Buckley said. Moreover, she points out, “There’s less of a case to be made to the C-Suite; if the patients are happier and it's not costing a lot of money, it's not that hard of an argument to make.” 

5. Pathology clinics improve communication 

In the post-CURES Act era, where patients can access their own charts and medical histories and diagnoses, pathology clinics can clear up any “misconceptions or errors” that a patient might find within them by discussing it with a pathologist, Dr. Buckley says. This helps both patient overall anxiety and safety. 

Additionally, rather than segmenting pathologists off to the side, pathology clinics can also help the entire care team work better together, Dr. Cummings finds. 

“I think it helps us all work as a team. Sometimes physicians might not know the answer to patient questions specifically about pathology,” he says. For example, if a patient wants to know what happened to their tissue after a biopsy, or whether a diagnosis is accurate, the pathologist can answer these questions. 

He gives an example of when a patient is in the operating room, having brain surgery. “The surgeon will call me, I will go to the operating room, get the biopsy tissue, make a diagnosis, and then the surgeon knows the diagnosis immediately when the patient is still being operated on.” 

This fluid chain of communication can help the patient feel better about their care and have more confidence about their diagnosis. 

6. Pathology clinics can support the patient’s family 

Dr. Cummings says patients are frequently joined by one or more family members when they come to the clinic. 

“I think the more [family] the better because then the more people that have the information and the knowledge,” and sometimes the information being discussed is related to genetic conditions that family members may need to know about, too, he explains. 

“There's a good number of not only brain tumors but eye lesions that might be inherited. For example, if I make a diagnosis of macular degeneration in the eye, then the rest of the family should probably get tested.” 

7. Pathology clinics promote pathology as a specialty 

Pathology is a field that often lives in the shadows of medicine. Pathology clinics can bust what Dr. Cummings calls the “stereotype that pathologists are the doctor’s doctor” who only talk to other providers and not patients. “The fact is, we are the patient’s doctor.” In other words, by enabling direct contact with patients, instead of through the mediation of a primary care provider, it brings the specialty to the forefront and shines a greater light on its value. 

“We are diagnosticians, but we're not what the general public thinks of as you go to a doctor—wearing a stethoscope or doing surgery or delivering a baby. We’re in the hospital looking at all the data, looking at the x-rays, looking at the biopsies, working to make the precise and correct diagnosis to determine the treatment plan.” 

He feels that the more patients gain access to pathologists, “overall it's a positive benefit for the field of medicine in general.”