Former Surgeon General of Pakistan, Lt-General Manzoor Ahmed (Retd) has said that there are around three pathologists for one-million people in Pakistan while the number of surgical pathologists is far below.
He stated this while addressing a seminar on the topic of 'The Dilemma of Split Biopsy' organised by the University of Health Sciences, Lahore in collaboration with the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) and Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (SKMCH&RC) here on Saturday.
Elaborating the history, objectives and problems of surgical pathology, he said that the surgical pathology has moved into the private sector, thus there is a dire need for ensuring quality. Laboratories must be accredited so that there could be some checks on them while inadequate training technical facilities are major areas of concern, he said.
He stated that practice of splitting biopsies, that is dividing the specimen material and sending it to different pathologists for examination not only poses a dilemma for the pathologists in diagnosis but also cause serious confusion for surgeons, physicians and the patients.
He further said that diagnosis based solely on split biopsies cause confusion for the surgeon or physician in deciding the final course of action for patients' treatment. The patients definitely suffer the most due to delay in getting a definitive diagnosis of his/her condition. 'This not only results in an unnecessary postponement in providing prompt and appropriate treatment but also encumbers the patients financially and adversely affects the patient physically and psychologically, he added.
Renowned Histopathologist Dr Muhammad Ashraf said on the occasion that unfortunately our undergraduate medical students did not get any training in histopathology. Neither there is any professor of microbiology in any medical college nor there exists any centre where microbiology can be taught, he added.
Brigadier Sajid Mushtaq gave a presentation on the 'Challenges of Professional Development in Histopathology in Pakistan' while Dr Qasim Ahmed of SKMCH&RC spoke on the 'Problems in Reporting of Tumours'. A large number of doctors and researchers participated in the seminar.
The other speakers called for focussing on the training of undergraduate students in Histopathology so that they could be able to handle the specimen carefully. For the correct diagnosis, it is important that the specimen tissues detached from the patients' bodies should go to only single laboratory for examination and that should also be present in the same institution where the surgical process had to be done, they added.