One the one hand it does highlight the need to be an active participant in ones own health care. It also is a wonderful story about a very bright young student with a future in pathology. (Although, I would personally recomend a second opinion by another pathologist rather than getting slides and having a look for yourself.)

One the other hand I get that uneasy ‘I’m glad it wasn’t me’ feeling when I see this. Everyone will make a mistake in their practice. A mistake is, of course, different than different professional opinions on areas of pathology that are muddy, or intrisically open to subjective bias. Most mistakes will not be caught. The ones that are caught usually do not have a large clinical impact. The select few that have large impact tend to make good headlines. It sucks when your mistake makes front page news. I like to think ‘never in my practice’, but I’m sure everyone thinks that…

There can be a small amount of good that comes from the negative PR – (back to the first point) – this type of story encourages people to be more involved in their health care. A well informed patient is alway a plus.

That being said, I am very impressed with the exposure these young adults have to histology/pathology in high school. I didn’t really learn any histology, much less histopathology, until college.