“Training Toxicologic Pathologists: Needs and Challenge for the Future”

Abstract

As a profession strives to maintain its quality of contribution to society, fundamental questions arise about how that profession selects and trains its future members. These questions have been asked of veterinary pathology and have arisen largely as a response to the steady and significant change that has been occurring in the professional activities by members of the American College of Veterinary Pathologists (ACVP). Over the past decade, the College’s membership has been increasingly composed of toxicologic pathologists, so that today over 30% of the College’s membership is practicing in the toxicologic pathology specialty area. This change primarily reflects new career opportunities based on expanding sociopolitical and regulatory expectations for safe and effective products. In the face of this change, training and certification issues have been addressed in recent symposia. One of the symposia, which consisted ofa combined session of the Toxicologic Pathology and Education Specialty Groups, was held at the 199 1 Annual ACVP meeting. At this symposium, educational needs for toxicologic pathology training were the primary focus. The symposium included presentations from academia and industry. The goal of the symposium was to discuss the role of veterinary pathologists in the practice of toxicologic pathology and the implications of this defined role for current training programs. Recently, another symposium was held at the 1993 Annual ACVP Meeting. Its focus was on both training programs and certification in toxicologic pathology with presentations again being made by academic and industrial speakers. In contrast to the 199 1 symposium, the primary focus of the 1993 colloquium was to explore the need for modification of the ACVP certification examination for toxicologic pathologists. However, many of the participants expressed views on training of students for future positions in toxicologic pathology. Because of the continued interest in the topic of training toxicologic pathologists and the similarity of many views expressed at the two meetings, we believe the discussions held 2 years ago are as relevant today as they were in 1991. We, the organizers of the 199 1 symposium, present below a perspective on training toxicologic pathologists and include suggestions of approaches and goals. These suggestions are for consideration by any individual or group that might want to consider making changes in how students are prepared for a career in toxicologic pathology.