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Alexis Snyder, MHS, PA(ASCP)CM
“Promoting your profession is easy when you love what you do!”
Almost a year ago, I made a difficult decision to leave a team I loved to pursue, advocate, and promote a passion of mine – pathologists’ assistants in autopsy pathology.
Currently, I work for a large academic center as their first “autopsy PA”. You will no longer find me in the gross room, but instead spending my days in the morgue. A common question I get is, “what do you do all day?”. In addition to performing our in-house hospital autopsies, we accept outside autopsies from other client hospitals, and uniquely, we also perform forensic autopsies. Our director of autopsy is a forensic pathologist and has medical examiner contracts for two counties. As the PA, I perform the autopsy, start to finish. I review the history, perform the external exam, eviscerate, dissect the organs, take sections, and write the report. The attending on service will still write up the histology, review my report, and be the one to sign out the case and complete the death certificate.
Since we are an academic center, resident interaction and education are a large part of my day-to-day. I teach them every aspect of the autopsy and take the opportunity to go over common grossing concepts as new trainees usually have their autopsy rotation before surgical pathology. Having a PA provides consistency in our resident’s training in autopsy and helps progress their academic careers! I am often partnering with my residents on projects that become publications. What is also great is that our institution requires all medical students to spend a week in pathology, which means they get a day in autopsy! I love being able to explain and share what we do with future doctors that routinely never get in-person exposure to the field.
As a PA in forensics, I am often explaining my role and proving my value. I came into a position where the support of having a PA as part of the forensic service was not unanimous amongst the faculty forensic pathologists. I think working hard, producing quality work, and just being present as a knowledgeable PA has changed the opinion of those skeptics as they now seem to have no issue assigning me cases. When given the chance, I try to share the current requirements to become a PA as there still seems to be some misunderstanding about our training.
Outside of my day-to-day advocacy, I recently gave a presentation about neonatal infections and a poster on Wischnewsky spots in hypothermia deaths at the Advances in Forensic Medicine & Pathology conference, which hosted a wide variety of professionals from varying backgrounds. It was an honor to be able to serve as a representative for PAs amongst presentations predominantly given by doctors. Immediately following this conference, I had the chance to volunteer at a Youth Summit hosted by my institution. The event hosted local middle school students to explore careers in medicine. It was great to introduce young minds to the awesomeness of pathology!
Promoting your profession is easy when you love what you do!
Are you a PA promoting the profession? Do you present at conferences to spread the word about PAs? Offer job shadowing opportunities? Educate students on what it takes to become a pathologists’ assistant? Did you recently receive an honor recognizing your work as a PA? We want to share your story! Send us a summary describing how you promote the PA profession and one or two high-resolution photos, and you may be our next featured member! Alternatively, if you know a colleague who goes above and beyond to spread awareness of PAs and their role in the lab, submit a nomination for your fellow member to be featured next!
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