Whither pathology in medical education?

Academic pathology needs to be reinvigorated

For well over a century, pathology has played a pivotal role in our understanding of disease. Its principles underpin many of our teachings in medicine and surgery, for, as Rudolf Virchow — the eminent 19th century pathologist and founder of modern pathology — so aptly observed, "Through the application of its doctrines ... it helps to deepen biological knowledge, and to light up still further that region of the unknown which still envelops the intimate structure of living matter".1 In short, an understanding of pathology is an essential prerequisite to an understanding of medicine.