Pathology 

is a specialty not confined only to blood tests as many people believe. Its an ocea
n of information which is only seen as a still lake by many who do know the kind of informat
ion and insight this specialty has given to modern medicine. Pathology is at the forefront of
ancient & modern diagnostics and helps the clinicians of all the specialties to diagnose, plan
treatment and assess the prognosis of majority of the diseases.

Pathology is study of disease and the ways in which the disease develops and manifests as a
result of changes in cells and tissues due to various agents such as microorganisms,
carcinogens, chemicals and many more etiological factors. It also helps in planning
treatment and prognosis of diseases. To be a Pathologist, you have to undergo formal
residency training program or diplomas throughout the world after finishing MBBS /
Medical school.

The subdivisions of Pathology are :

Anatomic Pathology including Surgical Histopathology

Cytopathology
Blood Banking and transfusion medicine
Chemical Pathology (i.e Clinical Chemistry)
Clinical Pathology
Haematology
Immunopathology
Molecular Pathology
Telepathology
Anatomic Pathology is in true sense, the most important division of Pathology as a
specialty in general. Rudolf Virchow is considered the father of Pathology. He did a lot of
work in Pathology and founded the principles on which modern pathology is based. The
most important contribution in my opinion was introduction of the systematic approach to
autopsy which is adopted by all the pathology departments worldwide and this is what
unraveled most of the mysteries of the diseases as we know it. He studied the cells after
dissecting all the organs and laid the foundations for anatomic pathology. His greatest
accomplishment was his observation that a whole organism does not get sick—only certain
cells or groups of cells which would break the long held notion of the whole body being
diseased in case a person fell sick.

In 1855, at the age of 34, he published his now famous aphorism “omnis cellula e cellula”
(“every cell stems from another cell”). With this approach Virchow launched the field of
cellular pathology. He stated that all diseases involve changes in normal cells, that is, all
pathology ultimately is cellular pathology. This insight led to major progress in the practice
of medicine. It meant that disease entities could be defined much more intticately. Diseases
could be characterized not merely by a group of clinical symptoms but by typical anatomic
changes.