The organization of the department
It is hard to imagine a department better suited than Pathology for bringing together researchers and clinicians to advance our understanding of disease in a way that will benefit patients. Many of us chose to become pathologists, in fact, because we thought that this path would provide the best opportunity for unraveling basic mechanisms of human disease. Those of us with MD/PhD combined degrees often had particularly strong ambitions to see the fruits of basic science in improved patient care. Yet these lofty goals have proven extraordinarily difficult to achieve. Why? One major obstacle is the profound cultural divide between medical practice and basic research. The gulf between lab and clinic needs to be addressed at the level of education, research divisions within the department, and the department as a whole.

Given our current strengths and the opportunities before us, it seems most reasonable to forge departmental identities around three major groupings on the basic science side: Immunology, Molecular Oncology, and a new division of Experimental Pathology, which will form the nexus of translational research endeavors in the department. Experimental Pathology will bring together our clinicians and basic researchers under one virtual roof to facilitate the kinds of interactions and exchanges without which translational research can be either shallow or impractical.

The boundaries between these groups are not hard—indeed, a number of faculty straddle two Divisions— but this organization provides focus for our educational and recruitment efforts, as well as journal clubs and other forums for intellectual exchange. Each of the Divisions will be associated with a graduate program: our ongoing, NIH-funded program in Molecular Oncology and Immunology will ultimately be split into two separate programs, and we will create a third, new program in Pathobiology designed to provide PhD students with a basic knowledge of medical sciences to prepare them for careers in biomedical and translational research. (Pathobiology will be associated with the Division of Experimental Pathology.) These educational initiatives, along with the increased strength in the basic and translational research activities of the Department, will also invigorate the residency training program by attracting more research-oriented residents and fellows.