School of Medicine

A Message from the Chairman

Pathology is the study of human disease, and at LSU we recognize that exciting new techniques in disease identification and diagnosis are constantly evolving with breakthroughs in technology and genetics that are leading to better patient care. Our laboratory is fully accredited by the College of American Pathologists (CAP) and boasts one of the most extensive automated lines for robotic handling and analysis of medical specimens in the country. See photographs It is part of the new, state-of-the-art, 400-plus-bed hospital, University Medical Center (UMC-NO), which opened in 2015, post Hurricane Katrina.

 

Our residency program is and has been fully accredited in both anatomic and clinical pathology (APCP) for more than 60 years. It now is approved for up to 12 residents. They join our dedicated team of physicians and laboratory scientists in offering full support to clinical physicians in other services. Our goal is to provide our residents with hands-on experience in both anatomic and clinical pathology, so they are confident and experienced to begin a specialized fellowship or enter practice at the end of their four-year residency. Our goal for LSU's 700 medical students is to prepare them with the knowledge of pathology necessary to understand the mechanisms of disease, the basis for clinical practice.

 

Numerous specialties are represented by our faculty through board certification or fellowship training, including uropathology, breast pathology, cytopathology, hematopathology, and microbiology. Our faculty members serve nationally on committees of the American Board of Pathology and the College of American Pathologists, and on editorial boards of peer-reviewed academic journals.

 

We collaborate with research and educational programs in other schools of Louisiana State University Health Services Center (LSUHSC), as well as other hospitals in Louisiana, including Children's Hospital, West Jefferson Hospital, Ochsner Medical Center, Touro Infirmary, Lallie Kemp Hospital and Our Lady of the Angels Hospital.

 

LSU Pathology at UMC hospital features an extensive list of on-site analytics, with full anatomic pathology services. Our American Association of Blood Banks certified blood bank supports all facets of UMC-NO, including its activities as Level 1 trauma center and its Burn Unit. The Maldi-tof instrument in the clinical microbiology laboratory identifies aerobic and anaerobic bacteria, yeast, and soon, molds and mycobacteria. State-of-the-art instruments in our molecular laboratory determine hepatitis B, C, and HIV viral load levels and genotyping. Our toxicology laboratory houses LC/MS/MS instruments for determining drug levels and other precision analyses. UMC's anatomic laboratory processes about 10,000 surgical specimens per year and performs extensive on-site special stains and antibody labeling, with more tumor tests being evaluated.

 

We are proud of our response of the Department, both faculty and residents, to SARS-CoV-2. We decided early to perform autopsies of COVID deaths and our publications were among the first to describe the pathology of COVID disease. We continue to study SARS-CoV-2 and publish findings in conjunction with other researchers. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Pathology acted rapidly to support the development of multiple testing platforms. The Pathology Department at University Medical Center has three SARS-CoV-2 PCR systems, the Abbott ID-NOW, the Cepheid Xpert Xpress, and the Roche Cobas 6800. The Pathology Department at Louisiana State University School of Medicine, jointly with the Genetics Department, operates the SeeGene SARS-CoV-2 PCR and the Illumina NextSeq 550 DX polymerase chain reaction analyzer.  The Illumina NextSeq 550 DX is an amplicon-based NGS test includes 2019-nCoV primers designed to detect and sequence RNA from the SARS-CoV-2 virus in nasopharyngeal, oropharyngeal, and mid-turbinate nasal swabs from patients with signs and symptoms of infection who are suspected of COVID-19. The system produces up to 384 results in 12 hours. Testing now being pivoted to cancer genomics as the need for COVID-19 testing diminishes. 

 

The practice of pathology is changing, and LSU is helping lead that change. We invite you to browse our website to learn more. If you are interested in any of our programs, please contact us or apply for a position in our residency program.

 

Gordon L. Love, M.D.

Chairman, Department of Pathology, LSU School of Medicine

Medical Director of the Clinical Laboratories, UMC-NO

Jack Perry Strong MD Endowed Chair of Pathology

Professor-Clinical Pathology