Abstract
The American College of Veterinary Pathologists (ACVP) is an organization of veterinary pathologists who have passed a professional competency examination in veterinary or clinical pathology after many years of study, training, and preparation for the exam. We were trained by veterinary pathologists primarily at veterinary colleges but also at some medical schools, diagnostic laboratories, and research institutions. After this long period of professionalization, we often obtained a position in a pathology department at a veterinary college, another college or university, or a research institute. However, where have all the Departments of Veterinary Pathology gone? There used to be so many of them.
Are there any Departments of Veterinary Pathology or Pathology at any American or Canadian veterinary college? There are Departments of Pathobiology, Veterinary Pathobiology, Pathology-Microbiology & Immunology, Microbiology-Immunology-Pathology, Biomedical Sciences, Biomedical Sciences & Pathobiology, Pathobiological Sciences, Veterinary Population Medicine, Infectious Diseases & Pathology, Population Health and Pathobiology, and Pathobiology & Population Medicine. Only 2 veterinary colleges have preserved a Department of Pathology (University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine) or Veterinary Pathology (Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine). Congratulations to them! The ACVP should present them with a Veterinary Pathology Conservation Award. Undoubtedly, there are good reasons for department consolidation and for new department names. Perhaps it is none of my business; I do not live in those states. But are we to be called pathobiologists? Is pathobiology a soon-to-be new discipline of veterinary medicine to be recognized by the American Veterinary Medical Association?
At medical colleges, there is usually a Department or Division of Comparative Medicine that contains a pathology group, but there is not usually a Department of Veterinary Pathology. At research institutes, pharmaceutical and chemical companies, and biotech firms, pathology departments are not often found.
In contrast, American colleges of medicine almost unanimously maintain a Department of Pathology or Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, with “Pathology” coming first in the department title. This individual component may be due to large numbers of pathologists, who may also represent hospital pathology practice in many hospitals in the area and have teaching and research duties.
A major medical dictionary defines “pathology” as, “The medical science, and specialty practice, concerned with all aspects of disease, but with special reference to the essential nature, causes, and development of abnormal conditions, as well as the structural and functional changes that result from the disease processes.”1 Thus, the term “pathology” could fit for a department title for most of the departments noted above. Have we lost veterinary pathology as a major discipline in veterinary medicine, or have we only lost it in the veterinary colleges? During the past 30 years, each veterinary college has reorganized and consolidated when necessary for various reasons. In these consolidations, the original departments of pathology or veterinary pathology have disappeared. In several colleges, the pathologists consist of such a large group that the new department still maintains its pathology character. In many others, it can sometimes be difficult to find the veterinary pathology unit, group, or program, much less the veterinary pathologists among the numerous professors, lecturers, and other scientists who are expert in other disciplines.
Veterinary pathology, however, does maintain itself as a powerful medical discipline in veterinary medicine in the form of the American, European, and Japanese Colleges of Veterinary Pathologists, the US Society of Toxicologic Pathology, and the European, British, and Japanese Societies of Toxicologic Pathology or Pathologists.
So, where do these developments all lead? There appear to be more efficient uses of college resources and support funds, which are especially important in years of tight budgets, and perhaps stronger integration of pathology with other medical disciplines. Unfortunately, there appears to be a loss of veterinary pathology as a clear organization in veterinary colleges, and even as a strong discipline in veterinary medicine.
Pathology strongly exists in human medicine; so, why not for veterinary medicine? If pathology is not to be lost entirely from veterinary medicine, I would strongly encourage that veterinary pathology as a formal organization be reestablished in the veterinary colleges. At the least, veterinary pathology subunits (Sections, Divisions, Units, Programs) in large departments with pathologists should be created if they are not already in existence.