We’re out of the basement
Donald S. Karcher, MD
February 2025—Five years ago, many of us were grappling with the earliest cases of a novel coronavirus in the United States. During the COVID-19 pandemic that ensued, we pathologists became more visible in a variety of ways, both to our clinical colleagues and to the general public.
Those years weren’t normal for anyone, but they were particularly abnormal for us: Out of nowhere, pathologists were being interviewed on TV, quoted in top-tier newspapers, and generally relied on in a very public way to guide our communities on testing protocols and other recommendations for how to stay safe.
Now, it’s worth taking a moment to see how that visibility affected our profession. Have things gone back to normal—back to the basement, as it were—for pathologists? Or did the pandemic create lasting change to give us greater public impact? In my view, we continue to be more familiar to the general public than ever before. That gives us a real opportunity to provide guidance and raise awareness about the importance of what we do for our patients. We’re out of the basement, and I hope most of us choose not to go back.
During my tenure as president of the CAP, I’ve given about 75 live radio and TV interviews so far, I’ve had a letter to the editor printed in The New York Times, and I’ve been quoted in some of the best-known newspapers and industry publications. I’ve been grateful for these opportunities to advocate for our profession and our patients, but I’ve also been a little surprised that any pathologist gets this much interest from the media. While much credit is due to the CAP’s media relations team for lining up most of these interviews, I believe that some of the demand is due to the increased awareness of pathologists and the role we play in the health care system.
Every pathologist has the opportunity to build on this new awareness. I see two major benefits to this: first, creating trust so we can help guide our communities on any number of health-related issues; and second, helping people understand the importance of pathology as a pillar of medicine.
I encourage all CAP members to make yourselves known as a trusted source of useful information in your communities. Contact your local TV or radio stations and let them know you’re willing to be interviewed on timely or other relevant topics. If you work in a hospital or large health care network, you might have a media relations office that will do this for you—but you have to let them know you’re ready to participate. You can also write letters to the editor to your local newspaper. You could respond to a recent article with additional information readers should know or simply write in about an important topic of broad interest to your community. Another option is to identify local groups and volunteer to give talks about areas of interest to them. For any of these outreach activities, you might succeed only a small percentage of the time. But the local news media is hungry for stories to tell and experts to help make sense of health-related news, so opportunities will arise in time.
When you do connect, there’s a whole range of topics you could be asked to comment on. Anything related to cancer is very much on people’s minds: how we diagnose it, how our diagnosis determines the correct treatment, why screenings are important, and how screening guidelines have changed. Seasonal infections are always of interest. I’m writing this in December, but I’m willing to bet that by the time you read this in February you will have seen plenty of news coverage about the respiratory infections that are most prevalent or even unexpected this winter. Around national holidays, we often see shortages in the blood supply; those are good times to be out there speaking about the need for donations and why they’re so essential to patient care. Finally, and this is far from an exhaustive list, newly emerging infections also get reporters’ attention. These stories happen fast, and they need an expert they know and trust to put the news into context.
Now that we’re out of the basement, we have new opportunities to help more people than just the patients under our immediate care. It’s a great responsibility but one that we are more than ready to handle.
Dr. Karcher welcomes communication from CAP members. Write to him at president@cap.org.