Post-Sophomore Year Fellowship in Pathology

The Department of Pathology at Stanford offers a 12 month fellowship for up to two medical students between their pre-clinical and clinical years of medical school. A key feature of the program is that it is flexible and can accommodate the individual interests of the students; however, a typical program will include 3 months of autopsy pathology, 5 months of surgical pathology and 4 elective months. Elective time may be spent pursuing areas of clinical interest and/or a research project. The goal of the program is to offer fellows a broad exposure to the practice of pathology in an academic medical center.

Typically, eight months will be spent in anatomic pathology (AP). This ordinarily will include three months on the autopsy service, during which the fellow will work under the supervision of pathology residents and autopsy faculty. During this time, the fellows will learn how to perform an autopsy prosection and to formulate a final anatomic diagnosis. The remaining five AP months will be spent on the surgical pathology service, where the post-sophomore fellows will help to accession and examine surgical resection specimens and biopsies, and will learn how to construct a surgical pathology report, all under the supervision of the faculty.

Four months are elective. These months may be used to explore areas of subspecialty interest and/or to pursue a research project. Possible areas of elective study in anatomic pathology include dermatopathology, neuropathology, renal pathology, lymph node pathology or cytology. Students interested in gaining exposure to clinical pathology (also known as “laboratory medicine”) may elect to rotate through clinical laboratories focusing on “wet” hematopathology (peripheral blood smears, bone marrow aspirates and biopsies), flow cytometry, cytogenetics, fluorescence in situ hybridization, molecular medicine, clinical chemistry, transfusion medicine, microbiology and virology.

Each student will be assigned a faculty mentor for his or her fellowship year. The mentors will help the students to design their fellowship experience, select electives and explore possibilities for research projects within the department.

General Information

Applicants must have satisfactorily completed the preclinical curriculum and be interviewed by the faculty prior to starting the fellowship. The usual starting date is July 1, but variations in starting times can be negotiated. The Department of Pathology will pay a stipend of $20,000 to cover the living expenses of the enrolled students. In addition, the students will have $1000 to spend on books/educational expenses. Health insurance will also be covered by the department.

For further information and application instructions students should contact Dr. John Higgins (650) 724-4340 (john.Higgins@stanford.edu) or Dr. Yaso Natkunam (650) 725-9354 (yaso@stanford.edu).