Starting pathology (entire handbook): Difference between revisions

In this handbook, it is recommended to read attentively until (and including) emergent pathology. For the rest, is recommended to scroll quickly through this handbook to get an idea of its content (unless where something is marked as important to memorize), and then keeping it at a known location for whenever information is needed for a corresponding patient case. After all, other doctors and even laypersons can look up diseases and conditions themselves, including microscopic descriptions, without the need for a pathologist consultation, so the expertise of memorizing such readily available information is expendable. In a world where diseases and conditions can readily be '''looked up''', a major skill that distinguishes a pathologist from any person with Internet access is mainly the ability to identify and put '''words''' to findings on microscopy or other non-written results, and to conceive most likely diagnoses based on both verbalizable and more abstract appearances. Another major skill is to be able to deal with '''unusual or equivocal''' presentations. Unusual or equivocal presentations of very common diseases and conditions are still generally more common than rare diseases, and constitutes a major workload in everyday pathology practice. However, most textbooks still give disproportionately large room for rare diseases compared to such presentations. Nevertheless, strive to '''master the common''' conditions (including the most common pitfalls) before diving into the uncommon.