This book is a memoir that tells stories taken from the life of a pathologist in the course of 42 years of practice in academic centers and community hospitals, with special attention to cancer diagnosis. Some stories are about the events associated with training the residents in pathology, or they reveal the mysteries of basic science research with occasional aberrations in scientific publications. There are episodes from 25 years of directorship in a hospital Department of Pathology and in private clinical laboratories. The memoir also speaks of interesting social encounters, with observation of certain attitudes in a segment of society. There are also comments about the great changes in medical practice over the past fifty years, changes which transformed medicine into "healthcare" and introduced the concept of "managed care", a system where the physician has become an employee controlled by business managers who often limit the time that is allowed for a patient visit.
This book is a memoir that tells stories taken from the life of a pathologist in the course of 42 years of practice in academic centers and community hospitals, with special attention to cancer diagnosis. Some stories are about the events associated with training the residents in pathology, or they reveal the mysteries of basic science research with occasional aberrations in scientific publications. There are episodes from 25 years of directorship in a hospital Department of Pathology and in private clinical laboratories. The memoir also speaks of interesting social encounters, with observation of certain attitudes in a segment of society. There are also comments about the great changes in medical practice over the past fifty years, changes which transformed medicine into "healthcare" and introduced the concept of "managed care", a system where the physician has become an employee controlled by business managers who often limit the time that is allowed for a patient visit.