A pathologist's profession

There are two major professional fields for pathologists. The autopsy of deceased persons and the examination of biopsies i.e. diagnosis based on microscopically findings in preparations of single cells or embedded tissue attained from living patients.

Whereas pathologists where focused on autopsies decades ago they are nowadays specialized doctors who engage mainly in classification of tumours and even more in early recognition.

Specially in matters of early recognition most of the specimens a pathologist will ever receive are gained without causing any bleeding. The most popular early recognition procedure is probably the so called pap-smear to prevent women from the onset of cervical carcinoma. In addition all egests or samples obtained by punctuation will be analysed by a pathologist. Additionally suspect palpable nods or suspect x-ray findings can either be punctuated or stamped (prostate mapping, female breast) and examined by a pathologist.

The colleges specialised in almost every other medical direction whatsoever treat and medicate their patients depending on the pathologist’s expertise. Whether the problems consist in what kind of - and what severity the underlying disease is - and in particular when the question arises: benign or malign, the leading part will be always taken by a pathologist. His findings will play a decisive roll in further treatment and even the effectiveness of therapies will often be additionally checked by pathologists.