Taakherschikking, ook in de pathologie

The field of clinical pathology, like other medical professions, is becoming more and more complex, leading to a need for subspecialisation and task differentiation. Whereas the deployment of Physician Assistants is common in other specialties, it is still rare in pathology. Although legal regulations state that histopathological diagnoses can only be made by pathologists, this does not mean that Physician Assistants cannot play a role in pathology. Within the legal regulations they can assist in screening cytological specimens and ‘simple’ histological specimens. They can also assist in the preparation of macroscopical specimens. These not only include specimens such as gallbladders and appendices, but also oncological specimens such as colon carcinoma resection, in which it has been demonstrated that on average, Pathology Assistants find more lymph nodes than pathologists.

Conflict of interest and financial support: a disclosure form provided by the author is available along with the full text of this article at www.ntvg.nl, search for A6187; click on ‘Belangenverstrengeling’ (‘Conflict of interest’).