Table 2.

Taxonomy and Examples of Pathologist Services.*

One Patient At A Time	Individual patients—each item includes all techniques for developing a diagnosis (eg, light microscopy and in vivo microscopy) and subsequent testing (eg, molecular, genetic, and immunohistochemistry)
Anatomic pathology (AP) and Surgical Pathology	Based on organ and system-based pathology, for example, breast, skin, GI, GU and gynecologic systems, pulmonary, blood and lymph nodes, etc and includes tumor board time as pathologist who rendered diagnosis. Institutions variably classify molecular/genomic pathology as AP or LM
Cytopathology	Gynecologic (cervical smears), body cavity fluids, fine needle aspiration (FNA)
Autopsy	General and forensic
Laboratory medicine (LM)	Microbiology, clinical chemistry, hematology, general laboratory, transfusion medicine (blood bank)
Genomic pathology	Genomic analysis of somatic (cancer) specimens, germline specimens, tissue human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing, and infectious disease
Real-time services	Pathologist sees patient to perform FNA, bone marrow biopsy, in vivo microscopy
Provider consults	After rendering a diagnosis, time pathologist consults or speaks with clinician to discuss therapeutic implications, uses EHR for similar purposes, or attends tumor boards as an interested expert; acute care consultation
Population Services	Services groups of patients, communities but not the individual patient
Laboratory medical direction (LMD)	Relates to management and operation of laboratories, maintaining quality standards, policies, certifications, regulatory compliance, CAP inspections.
Outcome assessment/utilization management	Determines if tests performed are useful, need upgrading with new or different methodology, or should be expunged from the test menu offered; quality assurance studies; engaging other physicians to improve patient outcomes
Biorepository management	Oversees patient protection, tissue sample quality, clinical information quality, bioinformatics and logistics
Public health	Includes point-of-care (POC) management of chronic disease; ongoing wellness management, epidemiology
Clinical informatics	Collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information to solve problems in pathology in the care of patients
PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES	To institutions, pathology, including the next generation of pathologists & self
Medical administration (nonoperational)	Professional activities associated with institutional committees (executive, strategic, and library committee) and to managerial and operational aspects of pathology laboratories on a broad level (eg, personnel and credentialing)
Teaching	Relates to residents, medical students, allied health &other physician groups
Research	Generally translational research, but includes basic science
Life-long learning activities, including that used to discharge LMD activities or improve patient care activities.	Maintenance of certification, compliance with federal and state regulations, journal reading
Professional Societal Obligation	Work in CAP committees, advocacy, participation in events, and leadership
Entrepreneurship (Practice management)	Running a practice, promoting practice, including client relationship building and management; developing new models of practice, and potentially disruptive start-ups/model expansions

Abbreviation: CAP, College of American Pathologists.

*Adapted from Robboy et al.²⁴