From the President’s Desk: At CAP ’13, countless ways to connect

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Another meeting highlight is the Future in Medicine awards program, a competition for high school students from the area where we meet. Local pathologists attend science fairs at schools close to our meeting site and select winners, who attend our meeting, exhibit their projects, and are presented at the Spotlight event.

Our staff is obsessive about continuous quality improvement; surveys cover everything from program quality to the schedule, plenaries, location, and exhibit area. And such CQI pays off. Our attendance has grown by about 10 percent every year, despite the economy. Last year, 1,371 practicing pathologists and residents attended CAP ’12. The number of exhibitors has tripled since 2006.

I see the exhibit hall as an educational venue that keeps us up to date on new technologies and the exhibitors as our true partners. Bob McGonnagle, CAP TODAY publisher, has proved that to be true. For our first annual meeting, he identified “early adopters” who were willing to rent exhibit space with no evidence that we knew what we were doing. It was a huge success.

Finally, I would like to share a short story about our CAP philosophy of “connect.” When the CAP ’03 planning committee first met, I shared recollections about how national and international meetings had enabled me to meet and remeet others who would become friends and even working partners.

That was how, some 30 years ago, I met Jan Baak, MD, PhD, then from Amsterdam and now from Stavanger, Norway. More encounters led us to work together on cervical dysplasia. Never did I imagine that these chance meetings would so profoundly affect my future scientific career.

Sometime around the year 2000, Jan suggested we consider a much larger project (endometrial precancer) in collaboration with a younger pathologist, George Mutter, MD, from Boston (who is presenting at CAP ’13). Together, we joined our capacities with molecular pathology, computer-based morphometry, and experienced eyes. We teamed up to give our first postgraduate course on the subject at CAP ’03. Our seminal paper was published in 2005, followed by a major review on the subject. And on Jan. 1, 2010, our new terminology, Endometrial Intraepithelial Neoplasia, officially entered the International Classification of Disease-9 (ICD-9) lexicon.

There are many choices for pathology or laboratory management education, but only one meeting focuses exclusively on the needs of board-certified pathologists and pathology residents. Ours is THE Pathologists’ Meeting. It provides “take-home-and-use education” directly and immediately useful to those in practice, whether in the community setting or academia, and those training to enter practice. Most important, the CAP annual meeting brings us together in a setting most conducive to reconnecting with one another time and again.

By the time you read this, the program should be posted at www.cap.org/cap13. Register now. The best opportunities fill quickly. 

Dr. Robboy welcomes communication from CAP members. Send your letters to him at president@cap.org.