Valerie Neff Newitt
July 2025—Seventy-eight percent of those responding to a survey said their institutions have a pathology student interest group, and they said the most effective ways to engage and retain students are hosting regular events; providing mentorship, leadership, and shadowing opportunities; and offering participation incentives.
Using social media and online platforms was reported to be less effective.
“A surprise in the findings was the student respondents’ desire to have more faculty engagement. So while students may want to start an interest group and are engaged, they have a hard time getting these off the ground if they don’t have faculty support,” says coauthor Kalisha Hill, MD, MBA. “We’re finding that when the faculty are engaged with these student interest groups, they are much more successful.”
Dr. Hill and her coauthors reported their findings in a recently published article (Lilley CM, et al. Arch Pathol Lab Med. Published online March 4, 2025. doi:10.5858/arpa.2024-0279-OA). Their online survey was sent via email to CAP Future Pathologist Champions and CAP medical student members in December 2023. Respondents totaled 125 (of the 954 solicited by email), 52 of whom reported being CAP Future Pathologist Champions and 72 of whom reported being CAP medical student members.
CAP’s Future Pathologist Champions are pathologists or pathology residents who serve as role models by encouraging and mentoring medical students and helping to promote medical school activities that support student interest in pathology.
Student interest groups (SIGs) took off in the early 2020s, shortly before the CAP launched initiatives to improve perceptions of the field, provide career and practice resources, and identify and support student champions, says Dr. Hill, medical director of pathology and laboratory services, St. Mary’s Hospital, Kankakee, Ill., and senior vice president and chief medical officer of Prime Healthcare. The champions now number more than 400. “It has made a difference,” she says. Two years ago the CAP launched additional initiatives, one of which was support for pathology SIGs.
“We now have a higher match rate into pathology. In fact, the match rate for 2025 is about 99 percent. That’s outstanding.”
Dr. Hill and her coauthors set out to learn what challenges the pathology SIGs face in engaging with and retaining students, what resources they need to run successfully, and how national organizations can support the founding and maintenance of the groups.
Ninety-four participants responded to the question about the steps needed to establish or maintain a SIG at their institution. Thirty-six percent were unsure, and 63 percent said there were institutional mandates requiring a constitution and bylaws. (Most questions were optional so that participants could respond only to the questions they felt confident answering.)
The most frequently cited means by which the faculty advisor contributed to the SIG’s success, according to the 84 who answered this question, was by providing guidance and mentorship (87 percent), offering academic expertise (74 percent), providing connections (71 percent), advocating for the group within the institution (56 percent), and securing extra funds (44 percent). “Getting them committed will be what makes the difference,” Dr. Hill says.
Fifty-eight percent of 78 respondents reported procuring funding and resources from student government allocations, 36 percent through grants and scholarships, and 28 percent by seeking external organization sponsorships. Fundraising, faculty/departmental support, and student fees were other reported sources of funding.
Funding is thought to be a barrier, Dr. Hill says. “To which I always say you don’t necessarily have to have money to be successful. Students can take it upon themselves to coordinate events to which people can be invited, but they don’t have to be expensive. It can be a gathering in a student center and everyone chips in for pizza and camaraderie.”
To Dr. Hill, the most important of all the strategies to attract medical students to pathology is the opportunity for shadowing. “That’s how most pathologists end up choosing this specialty,” she says. “This is the most important thing we can do for our medical students,” and that’s where the Future Pathologist Champions come into the picture. “This is what they want to do,” she says of the champions. “With 400 across the country now, we’re trying to make sure there are some in every single program. They’re the people students will follow around to see what they do every day.”
Respondents were asked how national organizations can most benefit or support pathology SIGs.
The 66 who responded pointed to providing grants or scholarships for student initiatives, resources and educational materials, and mentoring and networking opportunities.
Among the types of resources considered most beneficial are, according to the 97 who responded, interactive pathology-themed workshops and simulation (87 percent), guest lectures and presentations by pathology professionals (67 percent), and pathology case studies and diagnostic scenarios (52 percent).
“It’s very important to use all the department members in this effort to expose students to pathology in medical schools,” Dr. Hill says. Students who get the exposure, she says, “are surprised to learn all that we do, that there are over 20 subspecialties in pathology, that we can curate what our day looks like.” In the days before the Future Pathologist Champions and the SIGs, “these are points we were not able to effectively communicate.”
Though 78 percent overall reported having a SIG at their institutions, among future champion respondents it was higher: 87 percent, compared with 72 percent for the medical student respondents. “You have those leaders in their institutions, and they’re more likely to support a student interest group,” Dr. Hill says of the champions.
In quarterly calls with the Future Pathologist Champions, she says, most of them have reported that at medical schools with both SIGs and champions, “the number of medical students interested in pathology has increased over the last five years.”
She and her coauthors note an important limitation of the survey: Institution names were not collected at the time of survey completion, “which limits further analysis correlating pathology SIGs with the number of students pursuing pathology,” they write. It also precludes further analyses of factors that had an impact on the presence of a pathology SIG at a particular institution.
The survey data can be used to develop a road map for what’s required and what should be investigated to found a pathology SIG, the authors say.
Step No. 1, Dr. Hill tells CAP TODAY, is to “gather what information the students at your school would be interested in.” It can be information taken from the CAP website about how pathologists work, including the specialty descriptions of what is provided to patients, for example. “Share it with medical students in the program. Start with events to build a broader audience,” she suggests. “It takes only a couple of medical students to start to meet, to describe what the vacancies are in their current programs, to expose their classmates to pathology, and to connect with their faculty to see what information can be provided going forward.”
It’s to the student’s advantage to get the exposure that a SIG can provide, in Dr. Hill’s view. “Pathology is stimulating scientifically, with connectivity to patients and physicians. The authority of being a doctor’s doctor, as well as the patient’s doctor, sets pathology apart from other specialties,” she says. “And it is definitely an attractive field that all students should be aware of.”
Valerie Neff Newitt is a writer in Audubon, Pa.