Pathology Milestones: Assessing Clinical Competency by Committee.

All Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education accredited pathology residency training programs are now required to evaluate residents using the new Pathology Milestones assessment tool. Similar to implementation of the 6 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education competencies a decade ago, there have been challenges in implementation of the new milestones for many residency programs. The pathology department at the University of Iowa has implemented a process that divides the labor of the task in rating residents while also maintaining consistency in the process.

Decreased fragile histidine triad gene protein expression is associated with worse prognosis in oral squamous carcinoma.

Context: Fragile histidine triad (FHIT) gene is thought to be a tumor suppressor; abnormalities in expression have been reported in a variety of neoplasms.

Objective: To determine whether abnormalities of FHIT protein expression or loss of heterozygosity in the FHIT gene were correlated with survival or other clinical parameters in patients with oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma.

Design: Fifty-three patients with initial surgical treatment of oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma were followed a minimum of 5 years or until death.