CAP TODAY Pathology/Laboratory Medicine/Laboratory Management
Stanley J. Robboy, MD
February 2013—A National Football League playoff game was on the ceiling monitor in the airport lounge where I was trying to work on this column, and the announcer was talking about how well they were moving the ball. My first reaction was that he sounded awfully excited for a guy with only one ball to move. Maybe he should come to work at the CAP and see what real excitement is.
The CAP does have a lot of balls in the air, maybe sometimes too many, but that is a terrific problem to have, especially when we are experiencing so many breakthroughs in science and technology related to our specialty and when changes in the greater practice environment hold so much promise. It is good to be busy with what engages us.
Granted, all of us are challenged at times as we juggle all those balls while moving in several directions at once. And the CAP staff and committee members do sometimes have to scramble to track what all the players are doing, because a big part of our job is to keep everyone informed and keep pushing ourselves forward. I like the way it all works, and it works because we aim for consensus and then try to keep everyone on the same game plan.
Dr. Robboy
The key to communication is to keep everyone interested, and the CAP seeks to involve its members in as many ways and at as many levels as possible. We sponsor Peer2Peer meetings in which pathologists can sit down informally to talk about what they are grappling with and the solutions they are considering. We provide some of the most cutting-edge education available to pathologists, including an annual meeting that features not only outstanding didactics but related programming to further the national conversation, encourage members to network, celebrate the progress being made in the science of pathology, and provide opportunities to practice our ball-handling skills. Our advocacy team in Washington, DC, publishes and posts useful information at www.cap.org/advocacy and sponsors an excellent annual policy meeting (to be held in Washington May 6–8) that every pathologist should attend periodically. (My hope is that every midsize to large department will have one to two members attend each year.)
The College commissions research on emerging pathology practice models, such as that conducted last year by G2 Intelligence and summarized in a document that we are calling Promising Practice Pathways. (Members can download it at www.yourpathyourchoice.org; I highly recommend it.) In addition to formal research, we reach out to individual members to learn about the creative maneuvers they are engaged in, all with an eye to keeping all those balls in the air. (Our new eBook, which introduces some of those members and tells their stories, New Paths … New Choices: Pathology in an Era of Advancing Science and Disruptive Health Economics, will be available for download this spring.)