Cytopathology Fellowship

Program Overview

The fellowship training program in Cytopathology provides the primary training experience at the Los Angeles General Medical Center, a state of the art facility with a 600 bed inpatienct capacity and outpatient clinics in all specialty and numerous sub-specialty areas. The facility generates over 21,500 cytology accessions, including 2,300 fine needle aspirations, 2,900 nongynecologic exfoliative and 16,000 gynecologic Pap tests per year. The Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine fully operates a fine needle aspiration clinic, where 5 to 10 patients are seen each business day. Fellows are given graded responsibilities over microscopic review and sign out of all cytologic specimens and performance of fine needle aspiration procedures on superficial sites. Training in basic ultrasonography to assist in localization of palpable masses is provided to complement basic aspirations. Fellows are responsible for preparing and conducting clinicopathologic correlation conferences, cyto-histologic correlation conferences and tumor boards. Thin-layer preparation cytology methods are utilized on most gynecologic Pap tests and some non-gynecologic exfoliative samples. The Medical Center has a high risk population and the cervical cancer rate is more than triple that of the state or of the nation. Fellows are expected to perform research that will lead to publications or presentations at national meetings.

Requirements

The candidate must have completed 3 years of Anatomic Pathology training or 4 years of Anatomic and Clinical Pathology training by the beginning of the fellowship training. The candidate must be a resident in good standing at their primary training program. The candidate must have a California Medical License by July 1st of their training year. A letter from the resident’s Program Director must document what rotations the resident has taken, and a comment of completion of these rotations with competence. Two additional letters from the resident’s Cytopathology faculty is recommended.

Types and Numbers of Appointments

Four positions for the 1-year fellowship are available.

Facilities

The Los Angeles General Medical Center has a capacity of 600 beds in one unit on a single campus with more than 36,000 admissions and more than 562,000 outpatient visits per year. Patients of all ages, backgrounds and ethnic groups are cared for, representing a vast variety of diseases in such numbers that the rare becomes almost commonplace. A large modern laboratory with facilities in several buildings employs more than 300 laboratory personnel. Los Angeles General Medical Center is affiliated with Keck Medical Center and contains a capacity of 471 beds. Research facilities are available for a wide variety of procedures. Teaching conferences for postgraduate physicians and students are held daily in several conference rooms. Extensive library facilities exist within the department, hospitals, and the Norris Medical Library of the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California.

Community

Los Angeles is a metropolitan community of 7,000,000 people with an unmatched year-round climate, readily accessible mountains, beaches, snow and surf, and a wide variety of cultural, social, educational, recreational and sporting events as can be found anywhere in the world.