From the President’s Desk

A time to connect

Qihui “Jim” Zhai, MD

November 2025—With the upcoming holiday season, many of us are thinking about connections. Connecting with friends and family over a Thanksgiving meal. Reconnecting with kids coming home from college for winter break. Connecting with ourselves, maybe, by getting back to a favorite hobby during some planned time off. It’s a great time to delve a little deeper into why I chose “connect” as one of the three key themes to my CAP presidency (the others are inspire and embrace, and I’ll come back to those in future columns).

In my mind, connecting is not just about getting together in person. It’s also about having shared ideas, culture, and philosophy. I believe we CAP members need to connect with each other in all of these ways to make our organization and our profession stronger than ever. We need to synchronize our efforts and synergize our resources so we can work more collaboratively and more efficiently as we tackle pressing problems in our field such as a workforce shortage and the increasing financial pressures that have come from hospital mergers and reimbursement issues. That includes working with CAP staff members, who play incredibly important roles and who may be able to help us find more efficient ways of doing business.

Think about how much information we have for our patients today compared with the old days. The volume of data can be overwhelming. There are different biomarkers for almost every kind of cancer. All of this data means we can no longer work in silos. We must find ways to tap into our networks more effectively so we’re able to provide all of the subspecialty services that our patients need. This goes beyond pathology, too: We need to connect with surgeons, oncologists, and many other clinical partners to demonstrate our value and bring the best care to patients. Pathologists are in the best position to take the lead in delivering precision medicine; by connecting with our clinical colleagues, we can help them see how much we have to offer.

Digital pathology tools, for example, offer a great opportunity to connect. Gone are the days when the only way to get an expert consultation on a tough case involved shipping slides from one lab to another, hoping there was no damage along the way and that precious slides didn’t go missing in transit. Today, we can send digital images of slides anywhere in the world with the click of a button. This is a simple way to connect, and one we could all stand to do a little more often.

With digital pathology tools, AI, or any other new technology, we can learn and implement tools better when we do it together. When we try to do it alone, we can’t see or understand all of the different angles, but if we work as a team—whether that’s within our own lab or through a cross-lab collaboration—we get the benefit of many different perspectives. Connecting helps us do our jobs better, and the people who will gain the most are our patients.

Through all of these connections, we can ensure that pathology is at the forefront of advancements in precision medicine, AI, and other key areas that will help us provide better care. We strengthen our profession by connecting with a shared sense of belonging. And we can advocate for ourselves and our patients; together, our voices are louder and more effective. Ultimately, I believe that focusing on connections will allow us to transform the delivery of health care—and make sure that the value of pathology and pathologists is clear to all.

As Thanksgiving approaches here in the U.S., I want to wish all of you a happy holiday season. May you find fulfilling connections in your professional and personal spheres in the coming weeks, and may we all find ways to build on those connections, returning to work with a renewed sense of purpose and belonging.

Dr. Zhai welcomes communication from CAP members. Write to him at [email protected].