Undergraduate Courses
The major year one and year two Medical School pathology courses utilize a combination of didactic lectures and laboratory/small group teaching. Most of the department faculty participate as instructors in these courses along with most of the residents and fellows and a large contingent of voluntary faculty from community hospitals. The Course Director is Dr. Alan Rose. The textbook used for the course is Robbins/Cotran, Pathologic Basis of Disease, 7th Edition.
In the summer semester of Year One, students are introduced to the principles of General Pathology (LaMP 6101: Year One, Pathology: General Concepts) including cell injury, inflammation and repair, immunopathologic processes, abnormal hemodynamics, metabolic diseases and neoplasia. The course consists of 25 one-hour lectures and 12 two-hour laboratory sessions. Case studies of specific diseases are used to illustrate the principles of disease processes.
In Year Two, systemic pathology (LaMP 6300 - 6305) is taught in an organ system based approach that is closely integrated with topics in the Pathophysiology and Pharmacology courses taught at the same time. The organ systems include respiratory, cardiac, renal, neuropathology, female and male reproductive, hematologic, gastrointestinal, endocrine, and orthopedic diseases. The year 2 course consists of 52 one-hour lectures and 24 two-hour laboratory sessions.
Throughout both the year one and year two courses there is heavy emphasis on the visual aspect of disease. Gross specimens, microscopic glass slides, Aperio scanned whole slides, digital images, and videotapes are used extensively. Students have off-site computer access to each whole slide in their glass slide box in a digitized format. A CD-ROM containing each laboratory exercise with images is provided to each student and regular reviews of the laboratory sessions and lectures are conducted throughout the course.
Pathology is taught in a clinically oriented manner through integration of case presentations that include a history, physical signs, and complications in addition to the macroscopic and microscopic pathology. Emphasis on appropriate use of clinical laboratory tests is integrated into the course and during Year Two there is an introductory course in Clinical Pathology/Laboratory Medicine (see description below). The pathology courses emphasize the critical role that the pathologist plays in patient care.
Objectives for Year One: General Pathology (LaMP 6101: Year One, Pathology: General Concepts)
- To develop a disease related vocabulary that will serve the student for the rest of his/her professional life.
- To develop a working classification of disease processes according to etiology, a classification scheme that will permit the student to organize his/her thinking when encountering an unfamiliar problem.
- To establish a fundamental understanding of the molecular and cellular responses to various types of injurious agents including microorganisms, chemicals, physical insults and therapeutic agents.
- To establish a fundamental understanding of the morphologic consequences of various disease processes and the untoward results of their treatment.
- To understand the relationships between abnormal function and altered morphology.
- To develop the capacity to analyze and describe a patient-related problem with respect to etiology, pathogenesis, morphologic abnormalities and laboratory manifestations, and to understand and predict the inter-relationships between these factors and the clinical manifestations of the illness.
- To establish a pathology-based database sufficient to permit the student to augment his/her understanding of disease throughout his/her professional career.
Objectives for each organ system are given in each manual for periods one through six (LaMP 6300-6305). To attain the objectives for both the Year 1 and Year 2 courses, a variety of teaching formats is employed: these include lectures, laboratory exercises, and group discussions.
This Medical School course is taught in the Spring semester of the year two curriculum. The course is an introduction to the practice of Clinical Pathology. It is a practical laboratory based course that includes only a single short introductory lecture, followed by eight laboratory sessions with an introduction for each on the LaMP website and hands-on experience in the laboratory sessions. The topics of the laboratory sessions are scheduled to occur when they directly correlate with concurrent topics taught in the Pathology Organ System and Pathophysiology courses. The laboratory exercises are presented using short clinical cases with related specimens for testing. Results are recorded and interpreted for the case.
The course Director is Anthony Killeen, MD, PhD, who is Director of Laboratories at University of Minnesota Medical Center (UMMC). The Course Coordinator is Mary Ramey, MT (ASCP), CLS (NCA). Five additional Medical Technologists serve as Teaching Specialists for the course.
Course Goals for LAMP 6290-Laboratory Medicine
- To introduce medical students to the practice of clinical laboratory medicine, including the principles of selected tests and the judicious use of the clinical laboratory
- To identify the basis for common clinical laboratory tests used both in office practice and hospital settings
- To develop practical skills in clinical testing methods commonly used in office practice and hospital settings
- To develop skills in the interpretation of common clinical lab tests and identify the variables affecting these results
The department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology offers a broad range of electives for 3rd and 4th year medical students. These include 17 clinical electives in various disciplines of laboratory medicine and pathology, a research elective, and one in medical informatics. A list of the pathology electives is shown below.
- LAMP 7113 - Surgical Pathology-University of Minnesota Medical Center-Fairview
- LAMP 7114 - Surgical Pathology-Hennepin County Medical Center
- LAMP 7115 - Surgical Pathology-Veterans Affairs Medical Center
- LAMP 7119 - Forensic Pathology
- LAMP 7141 - Problems in Experimental Pathology
- LAMP 7145 – Neuropathology-University of Minnesota Medical Center-Fairview
- LAMP 7150 - Autopsy Pathology
- LAMP 7152 - Anatomic Pathology in a Hospital Setting-Veterans Affairs Medical Center
- LAMP 7153 - Anatomic Pathology in a Hospital Setting-Regions Medical Center
- LAMP 7154 - Anatomic Pathology in a Hospital Setting-Abbott Northwestern Hospital
- LAMP 7158 - Cardiac Pathology
- LAMP 7181 - Hematopathology
- LAMP 7184 - Introduction to Transfusion Therapy
- LAMP 7186 - Laboratory Medicine in a Community Hospital
- LAMP 7187 - Interpretation of Lab Data
- LAMP 7188 - Pathology Externship: Clinical and Surgical-Methodist Hospital
- LAMP 7193 - Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Externship: Central Mesabi Medical
- LAMP 7195 - Medical Informatics
- LAMP 7400 - Pathology-Duluth
The menu of electives provides students with choices of a general experience in pathology practice at one of the affiliate or community hospitals to a subspecialty elective, a didactic laboratory interpretation course or research experience at the University.
Pathology for Dental Students is taught in the Fall Semester to approximately 90 second-year students. The course is structured around 49 lectures in General Pathology and Organ System Pathology. There are no laboratory sessions but the visual aspects of pathology are richly illustrated in lectures and review sessions. The course emphasizes building a foundation of basic pathologic principles and preparing students for their study of oral pathology the following semester. The textbook used in this course is Kumar V: Robbins Basic Pathology, 8th ed. The course Director is Dr. Kristine Krafts.
This course is designed to provide a basic understanding of the causes, mechanisms, and effects of human disease. The course will:
- Build a foundation of basic pathologic principles necessary for understanding oral pathology. Many of the general pathology concepts discussed in this course (e.g., inflammation, general principles of neoplasia) will be directly applicable to the study of oral pathology in the next semester.
- Study a variety of diseases that have or may have manifestations in or around the oral cavity. Many diseases, such as squamous cell carcinoma, have symptoms and signs in the oral cavity. Often, a patient’s dentist is the first person to identify these important lesions.
- Teach features of systemic diseases that may impact the health of dental patients. Dentists encounter many patients with diseases other than those that are specifically dental related. A knowledge of the medical implications of these diseases will help dentists to safely prescribe drugs– and will deepen understanding of the ”whole” patient.
This course is designed specifically for allied health students in various career tracks but primarily undergraduate students in pre-Nursing, Nursing and Medical Technology. The course is taught in the Spring Semester to approximately 160 students. It is also offered as an IDL course for allied health students on the Rochester Campus of the University of Minnesota in both the Spring and Summer semesters. In 2007 80 students registered for the IDL course. Total allied health students taking this course in 2007 was ~240. This is a lecture course without laboratory sessions. Lecture handouts are included in the course handout package. A digital recording of each lecture is posted on the WebVista course website within 24-48 hours after the lecture. PowerPoint slides and notes not already included in the lecture packet are also posted. The textbook for the course is: The Nature of Disease: Pathology for the Health Professions by Thomas H McConnell, Lippincott, Williams, and Wilkins, 2007. Required readings in the textbook are emphasized. The first two units of the course are devoted to general pathology and the last three units to organ system pathology and medicine. The Course Director is Mark S. Wilke, MD; the course coordinator is Fran Lebahn.
Course Objectives
Following the pathology for allied Health course, students should be able to:
- Define human diseases as an alteration of normal structure and function (as learned from anatomy and physiology), e.g. state that pathologic change is represented by abnormal structure and function. The abnormality may be grossly obvious or sub cellular and molecular.
- Correlate the concepts and underlying general pathology with specific diseases in different organ systems, e.g. inflammatory reactions are similar whether in the heart, lungs, or other organ system.
- For each of the organ systems delineated, eg. cardiovascular system:
- Indicate the common diseases of the system, inherited, infectious, neoplastic, etc.
- Explain the primary features of each disease.
- Infer the interdependence of anatomic and functional systems, e.g. pituitary and thyroid, heart and lungs, prostate/bladder/kidney and recognize the sequence of events when one part is affected.
- Interpret common terms used in clinical medicine and pathology and the frequently used suffixes and prefixes, e.g. –itis, -emia, dis- (as in dysplasia), etc.
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