PEDIATRIC PATHOLOGY ROTATION GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
UAMS PATHOLOGY
GOALS
1. The trainee will have skills in specimen handling, clinician interaction, and
case evaluation that are appropriate and effective for pediatric patient care.
2. The trainee will demonstrate medical knowledge in perinatal pathology,
congenital and metabolic disease, pediatric neoplasia, cytogenetics, and
pediatric surgical pathology.
3. The trainee will exhibit practice-based learning and improvement in
pediatric pathology as demonstrated by effective presentations at pathology and
interdisciplinary conferences, composition of surgical pathology reports, and
successful performance of a personal karyotype.
4. The trainee will demonstrate effective interpersonal and communication
skills in his/her dealings with transcriptionists, histologists, clinicians, and
pathology faculty.
5. The trainee will demonstrate professionalism by effective working habits and
timely report generation.
6. The trainee will demonstrate an understanding of the systems-based practice
of medicine by his/her ability to utilize clinical and radiological data, work
with the hospital information system, and read patient charts as necessary for
effective surgical pathology and cytogenetic diagnosis and report-writing.
SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
1. Show proficiency in accurately describing, measuring gross lesions and the
appropriate selection of sections for microscopic evaluation (practice, patient
care).
2. Describe the principles/reasons for tissue fixation in the preparation of sections
for light microscopic, ultrastructural or immunofluorescence microscopic
evaluation (practice, patient care).
3. Describe the process and sequence of specimen processing from specimen
fixation, embedding, sectioning and staining (practice, patient care).
4. Enumerate potential areas of specimen contamination along the processing
pathway and discuss ways of troubleshooting for any errors that may arise
(practice, patient care, professionalism).
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5. Give a classification of pediatric renal tumors (medical knowledge, practice,
patient care).
6. Discuss the histopathologic features of Wilms’ Tumor and list the features that
indicate favorable prognosis (medical knowledge, practice, patient care).
7. Discuss the molecular biology, cytogenetics and the syndromes/associations seen
in Wilms’ Tumor (medical knowledge, practice, patient care).
8. Describe the histopathologic features of the primitive neural tumors of childhood
(peripheral neuroepithelioma, neuroblastoma, neuroendocrine) (medical
knowledge, practice, patient care).
9. Discuss the pathologic features and genetic abnormalities of Ewing’s sarcoma
(medical knowledge, practice, patient care).
10. Give a classification of rhabdomyosarcoma and describe the histopathologic
features of each sub-type (medical knowledge, practice, patient care).
11. Discuss the immunohistochemical staining and the genetic abnormality of
rhabdomyosarcoma (medical knowledge, practice, patient care).
12. Give a classification of pediatric brain and spinal cord tumors. Describe the
histopathologic features of the common childhood brain tumors (juvenile
pilocytic astrocytoma, medulloblastoma, astrocytoma, ependymoma,
oligodendroglioma) (medical knowledge, practice, patient care).
13. Describe the histopathologic features of benign soft tissue lesions (nodular
fasciitis, proliferative fasciitis, fibromatosis colli, soft tissue myofibroblastoma,
inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor, fibrohistiocytic tumors, xanthoma, and
others) (medical knowledge, practice, patient care)
14. Give a classification of vascular lesions (hemangioma, venous malformations,
arterio-venous malformation, carvenous hemangioma, lymphangioma,
hemangioendothelioma, and others (medical knowledge, practice, patient care)
15. List and discuss the common benign and malignant bone tumors of childhood
(medical knowledge, practice, patient care).
16. Classify and discuss the pathologic features of childhood germ cell tumors
(medical knowledge, practice, patient care).
17. Give a classification of childhood lymphoma and describe their histopathologic
and genetic/chromosomal aberrations (medical knowledge, practice, patient
care).
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18. Describe the benign and malignant tumors of the liver (hepatoblastoma,
hepatocellular carcinoma, hepatic adenoma, focal nodular hyperplasia,
hamartoma, and others) (medical knowledge, practice, patient care).
19. List and discuss the common tumors and lesions of the thyroid gland (medical
knowledge, practice, patient care).
20. List and discuss the common congenital lesions and neoplasms of the respiratory
system (juvenile laryngotracheobronchial papillomatosis, hamartoma,
pleuropulmonary blastoma, desmoplastic small round cell tumor, and others)
(medical knowledge, practice, patient care).
21. List and discuss disorders and diseases associated with the perinatal period,
particularly their pertinent clinical and morphologic features, e.g. SIDS, hyaline
membrane disease, viral and bacterial sepsis, cerebral palsy, intrauterine growth
retardation, meconium aspiration and peritonitis, necrotizing enterocolitis,
hypoxic lesions (medical knowledge, practice, patient care).
22. List and discuss the common congenital anomalies of childhood, particularly their
pertinent clinical, morphologic, and genetic features, e.g. branchial cleft
anomalies, testicular regression, intersex disorders, tracheoesophageal fistulas,
imperforate anus, trisomies, chromosomal deletion syndromes, sex chromosome
abnormalities, hernias (medical knowledge, practice, patient care).
23. List and discuss common metabolic disorders of childhood, particularly their
pertinent clinical, morphologic, and genetic features, e.g. galactosemia, amino
acid abnormalies, electron chain disorders and other mitochondrial diseases,
lysosomal storage disorders, glycogenoses, cystic fibrosis (medical knowledge,
practice, patient care).
24. List and discuss the complications of organ transplantation in children,
particularly their pertinent clinical and morphologic features, e.g. graft vs host
disease, lymphoproliferative disease, infections, transplant rejection, effects of
preparative therapy, effects of prolonged organ transport (medical knowledge,
practice, patient care).
25. List and discuss the surgical pathology and cytology of common pediatric lung
diseases, e.g. asthma, aspiration, bacterial pneumonia, viral pneumonia,
sequestrations, adenomatoid lesions, bronchopulmonary dysplasia (medical
knowledge, practice, patient care).
26. List and discuss the morphologic and clinical features of common pediatric
gastrointestinal diseases, e.g. reflux, gastritis, duodenitis, colitis, infectious
lesions, appendicitis, hepatitis, biliary atresia, paucity of intrahepatic ducts
(medical knowledge, practice, patient care).
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27. List and discuss the morphologic and clinical features of common pediatric
infections, e.g. candidiasis, mycoses, CMV, EBV, HSV, HPV, meningitis, staph
and strep infections, coliform infections, anaerobic infections, giardiasis,
helminths (medical knowledge, practice, patient care).
28. List and discuss the morphologic, clinical, and genetic features of common
immunodeficiency disease of childhood, e.g. chronic granulomatous disease,
DiGeorge syndrome, SCIDS, chemotherapeutic complications (medical
knowledge, practice, patient care).
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