Dear Pancreatobiliary Pathology Society Members,
Happy Winter!
We are gearing up for the annual USCAP meeting! Our Companion Society session will be held on Saturday, February 29th from 7-10 pm in room LACC 502-A. Our annual Business Meeting will immediately follow. This year is the end of the two-year terms for the Executive Committee so we will be presenting the slate for President, Vice President and Secretary Treasurer. Please attend and cast your votes! Also, nominations have been submitted for the PBPath Society Abstract Award and the winner will be announced at the Business Meeting.
Our society has been extremely productive over the past several months. The creation of an excellent program for the Companion Society by our Education Committee is only one of several accomplishments. I am excited to inform everyone that Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine is going to publish review articles sponsored by the PBPath Society. These articles are based on the lectures that were given during our Companion Society Meeting at USCAP 2019. Please keep an eye out for these publications. Our Case of the Quarter Subcommittee remains active and has been providing educational cases for all members to tackle; this past fall, we welcomed 4 new members to the subcommittee: Deyali Chatterjee, Goo Lee, Yue Xue and Zhaohai Yang. Our bimonthly Journal Watch nicely highlights pertinent publications involving the pancreatobiliary tract.
And there is more good news. Because of Serdar Balci’s web-based knowledge and dedication to the society, the Membership/Website Committee, along with the Executive Committee, have appointed Serdar Balci as the official Webmaster for the society – congratulations Serdar on this well-deserved appointment! The PBPath Society is also now accepting ads for job and fellowship postings. The Working Groups have been productive as well: The Cytology group is wrapping-up a multi-institutional study assessing the minimal number of tumor cells required for Ki67 index calculation on pancreas FNA samples using corresponding resections as the gold standard for comparison, and the Neoadjuvant group presented their data at the 2019 USCAP Annual Meeting and is planning to write a consensus paper based on the group’s work. This past fall, PBPath Society members also participated in the ASCP, CAP and European Congress of Pathology annual meetings. Most recently, we’ve been asked to provide input on the ICCR’s draft dataset on carcinoma of the exocrine pancreas (please check your emails as the deadline is February 14th).
Our society continues to be a success because of you, its members! I would like to recognize the following members who continuously contribute time and effort to our society: Olca Basturk, for organizing another stellar USCAP Companion Society session; Serdar Balci for publishing the bimonthly journal watch; Mabel Ko for managing our website and the members of the Executive Committee, Grace Kim, David Klimstra, David Lewin, Volkan Adsay, and Olca Basturk, for keeping everything on track and in order.
The PBPath Society is an international organization that strives to improve the clinical practice of pancreatobiliary pathology by providing an environment of team work and cooperation. As my Presidency comes to an end, it amazes me how much we have accomplished over the past 2 years. None of what we now have would have been possible without such collegial, friendly, and motivated members. I am so happy and so proud that I had the chance to serve as the President of this great society.
– Alyssa M. Krasinskas, MD