Our Larkin Community Hospital Palm Springs Dermatopathology Fellowship Medicine program emphasizes each fellow to become lifelong learners. This program’s goal is to develop physicians that are technically competent, culturally sensitive, professional and compassionate that will serve society by providing comprehensive. We train our fellows to promote patient-centered care, up-to-date medical knowledge, and scholarly development. We encourage our fellows to take initiative as future leaders in different communities to promote medicine with a distinctive philosophy focusing on patient-centered care. Fellows will acquire a comprehensive fund of knowledge essential for the diagnosis and management of the wide variety of entities encountered in clinical Dermatopathology. The fellow will be exposed to the subject matter necessary for passing the certifying examination. To accomplish this, a faculty dedicated to patient care, teaching, research, and intellectual curiosity will provide the infrastructure for the fellowship learning experience. The fellow will be expected to be self-motivated, collegial, and exhibit the highest level of personal integrity. Fellows must be responsive to guidance, invest the time and effort necessary for independent learning, and be dedicated to providing the highest quality patient care. The primary goal of the Dermatopathology fellowship is producing accurate and efficient diagnoses. The secondary goal is developing interpersonal and communication skills and learning the role of the Dermatopathology’s in the health care system. The learning objectives include recognizing the basic inflammatory reaction patterns, along with patterns of neoplasia including adnexal neoplasms, melanocytic neoplasms, and soft tissue tumors. Fellows should also learn the basic pathophysiology of skin diseases and neoplasms. The progress achieving the goals is monitored via direct observation, quizzes, and comparing the fellow’s Dermatopathology diagnosis with the final diagnosis. The fellows are also evaluated through New Innovations in regard to the quality of their work. As the fellow becomes more comfortable with their diagnoses, they are able to dictate the cases prior to review of the cases with the attending physician. All cases are always still reviewed with an attending physician. By the end of the fellowship the fellow should have achieved six core ACGME competencies:

1. Patient Care – Give accurate diagnoses in a timely fashion and interact with patients with compassion.
2. Medical Knowledge – Gain a solid foundation on the fundamentals of Dermatopathology. Learn to critically appraise the literature and develop a foundation for continued learning.
3. Practice Based Learning and Improvement – The fellow should learn when to ask for consultations, apply knowledge, use information technology, learn quality improvement techniques, and teach medical students, residents, and fellows.
4. Interpersonal and Communication Skills -The pathology report should be concise, understandable, and communicate as much useful information as possible. The fellow will also effectively communicate with patients, other physicians, and ancillary staff.
5. Professionalism -The fellow should commit to his or her work, enthusiastically help others, and sensitive to others needs.
6. Systems Based Practice – The fellow will understand the role of Dermatopathology in medicine, understand the costs involved, and learn how to order tests and ancillary stains in a cost effective and ethical manner. 3 Achievement of the goals and objectives will be performed by participating in dermatopathogy through the rotations in Surgical Pathology / Dermatology clinic. The fellow will also be expected to attend, participate in numerous educational activities and conferences such as journal club, weekly dermatopathology conference, Dermatology grand rounds, and tumor boards. Fellows will rotate through Aurora Diagnostics Global Pathology Laboratory Fellows rotate through Dermatopathology rotation for 8 months with Dr. Laszlo Karai (Site Director) and Dr. Andrew J Hanly as their supervising physicians. Fellows will spend 4 complete months in Dermatopathology and for the remaining 8 months, fellows will complete Dermatopathology for 50% of each week (for a total of 4 months). During this experience fellows will have surgical pathology experience for dermatology trained fellows during their fellowship. In addition fellows will have virtual surgical pathology lessons through-out their didactics. In addition, during this experience fellows learn comprehensive knowledge about biomedical, clinical and epidemiological science as they relate it to Dermatopathology.

Laszlo Karai, MD
Program Director

Rita Mayorga
Coordinator
dermpatcoordpsc@larkinhospital.com

Program Length: 1

Number of Positions each Year: 2