The Department of Pathology at Saint Louis University School of Medicine offers a four-year ACGME-accredited Pathology Residency Training Program leading to combined certification in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology. The emphasis in this program is on broad training within a university medical school environment for the resident interested in the hospital practice of anatomic and clinical pathology. Subspecialty training for all residents is provided in diagnostic electron microscopy, immunopathology, cytopathology, coagulation, microbiology, blood banking, neuropathology, forensic pathology, hematopathology, gastrointestinal and liver pathology, and pediatric pathology. Participation by residents in research and teaching is encouraged and expected. Fellowships in blood bank/transfusion medicine, forensic pathology, GI & hepatic pathology, hematopathology, and pediatric pathology are available.
Four principal hospitals provide exposure to a full range of pathology. All are teaching hospitals affiliated with Saint Louis University: Saint Louis University Hospital with 316 beds, Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center with 190 beds, St Mary’s Health Center with 525 beds, and the John Cochran VA Hospital with 355 beds. Department faculty is responsible for the Medical Examiner’s Office in St. Louis City. A Medical Death Investigator Training Course is held three times/year and a Masters Advanced Training Conference is held every other year. A total of approximately 218 hospital autopsies, 545 forensic autopsies, 32,000 surgical specimens, 8,000 cytologies, and 4,245,000 laboratory tests are performed each year. A total of 640 fine needle aspirates are interpreted in cytopathology. The department also serves as a referral center for evaluation of inherited metabolic diseases, muscle biopsies, renal biopsies, toxicology, immunohistochemistry, immunohematology, and electron microscopy.
The Department of Pathology houses a full service Research Microscopy and Histology Core that includes 3 laser scanning confocal microscopes including a Leica TCS SP8 STED 3X super-resolution system, Olympus FV-100 MPE (multiphoton) and Olympus FV1000 laser scanning confocal microscopes, JEOL 1200 transmission electron microscope, a JEOL 5800 scanning electron microscope with X-ray analysis system, an Olympus IX81 live cell motility imaging system, Olympus and Leica upright and inverted epi-fluorescence microscopes, and an Arcturus PixCell IIe laser capture microscope. The Core offers processing, embedding, sectioning, and staining of paraffin, frozen, and plastic-embedded tissue. It also offers specialty services including tissue microarray preparation and cytometers, and our Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory houses an Abbott Molecular m2000rt real time PCR instrument, two QIACube nucleic isolation robots, a Roche LightCycler 480 II, and a GeneScanner 3500.
Active research programs exist in the department on molecular pathology and pediatric pathology, renal and dermatopathology, oncogenes and cytokines, molecular immunology, RNA metabolism in normal and tumor cells, platelet function, endothelial cell-neutrophil interaction, the pathology and treatment of lysosomal storage disease, liver and viral diseases, forensic toxicology, signal transduction, phospholipid metabolism, atherogenesis, transplant pathology, molecular biology of ovarian neoplasia, molecular mechanisms of hepatic fibrogenesis, chemoprevention of colon cancer, and phospholipase activation.
St. Louis is the urban center for the Greater St. Louis area with a population of over two million. Cultural opportunities include the St. Louis Art Museum, numerous art galleries, the St Louis Symphony Orchestra, an acclaimed opera company, several professional theaters, the Science Center, and the superb St. Louis Zoo, the new aquarium and ferris wheel. Opportunities abound for tennis, softball, golf, jogging, ice skating, handball, and other sports in the numerous parks in the city and county. Rivers within a one-day drive provide canoeing and float trips. Professional sports are represented by the baseball Cardinals and the hockey Blues. Saint Louis University fields nationally competitive Billiken teams in basketball and soccer.
