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Pathology

The Department of Pathology offers basic pathology courses to health sciences students; a clinical training program for clinical laboratory scientists; a Master of Science in pathology; residency training programs leading to American Board of Pathology certification in anatomic pathology, clinical pathology, and neuropathology; fellowship training in pathology subspecialties; and postdoctoral research training in cellular and molecular pathology.

Clinical Education

See Clinical Laboratory Sciences in the Catalog.

M.D. Student Training

The department provides seven 12-month medical student fellowships for M.D. students: the Emory Warner Fellowship, a full-time research position in a facet of experimental pathology; and six pathology externships, for students interested in careers as pathologists. It also offers a varying number of clerkships for M.D. students in any of the areas of anatomical and clinical pathology.

Residency Program

The department offers 20 residency positions in pathology, covering a training span of up to four years. Patients of University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and the Iowa City Veterans Affairs Medical Center are integral to the program.

Residents gain experience in systematic rotation through the varied laboratory services, including surgical pathology, autopsy pathology, neuropathology, cytology, clinical chemistry, clinical microbiology, hematology, immunopathology, and transfusion medicine. They also have the opportunity to pursue one to three years of additional fellowship training in most pathology subspecialties.

Graduate Program

The department offers a Master of Science in pathology.

Master of Science

The Master of Science in pathology requires a minimum of 30 s.h. of graduate credit, including 21 s.h. of classroom work and 9 s.h. earned for research. The program trains graduate students in cell and molecular biology. Graduates work as research scientists in a range of academic and commercial laboratories, including those in the rapidly expanding biotechnology sector. Others advance to doctoral-level study.

M.S. students take a core curriculum in cell and molecular biology as well as electives suited to their individual interests. They acquire contemporary research skills by pursuing a laboratory thesis project under the guidance of a faculty member. Currently, there are active research programs in immunology, microbiology, neuroscience, signaling and apoptosis, inflammation and vascular biology, tumor biology and cancer, and virology.

Most M.S. students complete their course of study in three years.

The department encourages applicants with Bachelor of Science degrees in biology, chemistry, biochemistry, clinical laboratory science, microbiology, and zoology. Applicants must meet the admission requirements of the Graduate College; see the Manual of Rules and Regulations of the Graduate College or the Graduate College section of the Catalog. They should have an undergraduate g.p.a. of at least 3.00 and a combined verbal and quantitative score of at least 1100 on the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) General test.

Postgraduate Training

The Department of Pathology offers postgraduate clinical fellowship programs in hematopathology, transfusion medicine, clinical microbiology, cytopathology, molecular genetics pathology, and surgical pathology for physicians who have completed residency training in pathology. These fellowships consist of one to two years of diagnostic work and up to two years of laboratory research.

The department provides postdoctoral research training in immunology, neuropathology, apoptosis, cancer biology, and clinical microbiology as well as in other areas of cellular and molecular pathology. These positions are open to individuals with either a Ph.D. or M.D.

Facilities

The Department of Pathology is well-equipped to carry out the sophisticated technology of modern cellular and molecular pathology. It administers more than 90,000 square feet of clinical laboratories at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and has individual research and core facility laboratories, including histopathology and laser capture microscopy for cellular and molecular pathology research, in the Medical Research Center, Medical Laboratories, and at the Iowa City Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Also available are Carver College of Medicine research facilities for nucleic acid chemistry, hybridoma production, flow cytometry, ultrastructural studies, protein structure, image analysis, electron spin resonance, mass spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, and laboratory animal care.