“Do pathologists do surgery?”

No, we help the surgeon in the process doing frozen section of the tissue before the surgeon have finished the surgical procedure. At that moment we give the surgeon a preliminary diagnosis and check for the margins of the specimen to see if they are compromised so the surgeon can go back and cut more until the margin are free of cancer. Thank you.

Nope.

Pathologists are physicians. Basic training is 4-5 years after medical school. Many now do an additional 1-2 years of training for sub specialization. Some do perform procedures. They may biopsy bone marrow, aspirate cells from a lesion and perhaps minor surgery such as removal of a small mole.


RB Thomas, MD

Pathologists are not surgeons. Some pathologists perform minor invasive procedures, such as a fine needle aspirate procedure for a superficial mass or lesion (such as a thyroid gland mass), as well as bone marrow biopsies (obtaining samples of bone) for pathological examination.

Pathologists do not perform surgery. They may perform find needle aspiration biopsies of thyroid gland or breast or any superficial lesion; those rare pathologists are specially trained and they see patients. Depending on your definition of a clinician, they should be considered clinicians as they are very responsible for patients, the correct diagnosis, despite the fact they do not see the patients. If you do not consider a physician who makes a diagnosis of carcinoma a clinician, and on the basis of his/her report the patient will get treatments radiation or chemotherapy a non-clinician, then they are not clinicians.