This educational series is designed to provide a forum for conducting clinic-pathological exercises (CPC) in the same format as it is done in the Massachusetts General Hospital and published in the New England Journal of Medicine almost every week.  We will select our own cases.  Learners will participate in discussions about cutting edge information or practice guidelines for, and to answer clinical questions that arise during the care of, concurrent clinical problems by experts through a didactic conference.

CPC provides clinicians and residents an opportunity to review the differential diagnosis of common clinical symptoms and understand how to solve complex clinical problems using a clinical approach. CPC represent common presentations of uncommon problems or uncommon presentations of common disorders.  By providing a discussant most of the essential details of a pre-selected case, the expectation is that any reasonable physician with some expertise would be able to solve that clinical puzzle using clinical knowledge and integration of data provided to surmise accurately the underlying problem, or at least list 2-3 probable conditions and suggest a discriminatory test to identify the correct diagnosis.

Mortality conferences are geared to review deaths in medical service, and in so doing, identify opportunities to improve patient care.  From the faculty, a senior faculty member selects a case for discussion by the resident and helps the resident prepare the presentation and evaluates his/her performance during the entire project per ACGME.

Topics discussed in Medical Grand Rounds are both common and uncommon medical problems, many of which are selected at the request of attendees. Sometimes topics are selected based on our understanding of practice and/or knowledge gaps identified during Morning Report or other face-to-face meetings with learners. Occasionally topics are selected based on recent scientific advances in the area.

ABMS Competencies:

• Practice-based learning and improvement
• Professionalism
• Systems based practice

Learning Objectives:

• Glean the correlation of clinical and pathological information from tissue or autopsy derived data
• Review pathogenesis and pathology of glioblastoma multiforme
• Review new treatments for and treatment results of glioblastoma multiforme

Activity Director: Kesavan Kutty, MD

Administrative Contact: Maxine Cowell, 414-447-3556, m12cowell27@att.net