The Challenge of Integrating Informatics Training During Residency

This month’s issue continues the Journal’s series on issues related to education and training in pathology and laboratory medicine.1 As the practice of medicine evolves and changes, so too must pathology and laboratory medicine. With new knowledge, new types of procedures and tests, and new technologies, the specialty and, consequently, the training programs responsible for producing the next generation of practitioners must continue to adapt. This is hard. Change is hard. This challenge is amplified by the sheer size of the domain we as pathologists aspire to master during training. The maturation of informatics as a defined discipline in the practice of medicine has had an ever-increasing impact on the practice of pathology and laboratory medicine. While the recent decision to make the practice of medical informatics a board-certified specialty might have added a certain level of legitimacy for individuals who have dedicated themselves to informatics, the true benefits of applied informatics for pathology rest in the ability to integrate these concepts and technologies with the core components of the domain.