In this issue

Excerpt

This journal has published papers on (undergraduate and postgraduate) education in Pathology in the past and will continue to do so: educating the upcoming generation is one of our most important responsibilities. The paper by Nagesh et al. (DOI https://​doi.​org/​10.​1007/​s00428-018-2299-z) is descriptive and does not provide tangible evidence of a positive impact of their public engagement approach towards pathology teaching, but the idea is compelling. The reasoning of the authors is that ‘trends in modern undergraduate medical education focus on a patient centred approach through problem-based learning’ which has resulted in ‘integrating pathology into this style of learning’ with as a consequence ‘dilution of core scientific principles which may have contributed to reduced understanding and interest’ in pathology. The innovation the group chose is to have medical students engage with the public at large, empowering them to learn pathology by teaching the public. This was done in the National Pathology Week upon generous funding by the Royal College of Pathology. A curriculum was designed allowing students to educate the public on a variety of topics such as the role of pathologists in cancer screening programmes and the diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease. Medical students volunteered and those that participated learned among others how to use a microscope to visualise pathology slides and how to communicate and teach aspects of pathology effectively to a lay audience. The underlying didactic principle has been called ‘learning by teaching’. This is by no means new. Most of us will have experienced how teaching contributes to developing our own understanding of important principles and to widening our knowledge base. What is new in the approach the group developed is the choice of the public at large: combining efforts to increase public awareness of what pathology is with confronting students with the central role of pathology in medical education. The authors are to be commended on this innovative idea. It will be interesting to receive regular updates on how this element of the pathology curriculum impacts on student interest in and understanding of pathology and how this is perceived by the public. …