CAP Session Lends Support for Residency Application Season

Finding Your Residency Fit

Hematopathology’s Move to the Fellowship Match

Science-backed Tips on How to Avoid Distractions

CAP on Demand

Transcript

Elizabeth McMahon 0:02

Coming up? Calming nerves as residency applications ramp up. A CAP webinar gives med students guidance. Plus, put the cell phone down. How to mitigate daily distractions from scientists specializing in attention research. This is Path News Network Daily Edition from the College of American Pathologists. I'm Elizabeth McMahon. It's Thursday, August 6th. Fall is right around the corner and residency application season is ramping up. If you're a fourth-year medical student dreaming of a pathology match, an August 11th CAP webinar can help you get a leg up to find the residency that fits. Dr. Alyssa Lee, a pathology fellow at the University of Alabama Birmingham, will moderate the session. She says residency application volume has increased markedly in recent years.

Dr. Alyssa Lee 1:04

In pathology, I think like U.S. grads were seeing about 70 applications per candidate, and international graduates are applying to something like 140 programs. So that ends up having an increased cost on the applicants, but it also gives the programs just this enormous number of applicants to review.

Elizabeth McMahon 1:22

The webinar will include plenty of time for QA with program directors and junior residents to help ease some of the anticipation.

Dr. Alyssa Lee 1:31

Every year there's this element of anxiety over the application season from really both sides of the fence, from the applicants and from the programs. They're both anxious of like, who are we going to get to meet? What is the program going to be like? What are the applicants going to be like? Um, and so kind of just finding a way to bridge the gap between like program directors and current younger uh PGY level trainees as long as well as the um the medical school applicants who are going through the process, giving them a chance to kind of interact and engage with each other um early on was the goal.

Elizabeth McMahon 2:04

Register for the Finding Your Residency Fit webinar at the CAP events page. Once you've landed a residency, it can feel like the pressure to find a fellowship isn't far behind. This month's edition of CAP Today takes a close look at recent shifts in the application process for subspecialty fellowship programs. Many subspecialties, including hematopathology, forensic pathology, and molecular genetic pathology, have joined the National Resident Matching Program Fellowship Match within the past six years. The move has helped coordinate and organize fellowships, pushing back application timelines along with the pressure residents feel to make choices they might not be ready for. Still, not all subspecialties are part of the National Match Program. Read the story in CAP today to learn about hurdles that remain for prospective fellows and how they're working through a varied application process. It's a discouraging fact. U.S. adults check their phones 186 times per day, or roughly once every five minutes. With texts, emails, meetings, and equipment noises adding to distractions in the lab, the journal Nature asked six attention researchers and educators for tips on how to mitigate the disruptions. One tip? Figure out when you focus best, says Gloria Mark, a psychologist and attention researcher at UC Irvine. Quote, for scientists, it's really important for them to understand that they have these limited cognitive resources. They should understand when their peak periods are and use those times to do their most important work, she said. In addition, putting away your phone, setting goals, and reaffirming them in the morning can also help, the expert said. And finally, your home streaming services may be packed with binge-worthy shows, but what's at the top of your cap on demand cue? Right now, many videos are popular with members, including a session focusing on the tough adjustments that come with consolidation and change. Dr. Moira Larsen, Executive Director for Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Medstar Medical Group, shares some of the tough moments that come with upheaval.

Dr. Moira Larsen 4:34

You have to let the team let go. You have to acknowledge that things in the past worked, but things will be better. It takes a lot of communication. It takes a lot of stories to explain what will get better. Unfortunately, sometimes people have to move out of the organization, but usually with effective communication, you can get past that.

Elizabeth McMahon 4:57

O ther top views include an introductory video on using AI in breast pathology and a session on patient-centered pathology reports. This large library of expert-led videos, webinars, and lectures is available with your member login at cap.org. That's all for today's Daily Edition. Be sure to check the show notes for more information on today's stories. Got a story you'd like us to cover on the Daily Edition? Write to us at stories at Cap.org. We're back at 5 a.m. Eastern for another episode of the Daily Edition. I'm Elizabeth McMahon. Have a great day.