“One of the strengths of Practical Breast Pathology is that we emphasize the differential diagnosis and what to look for so that you don’t over-diagnose a benign lesion as malignant or miss a tumor and call it benign.” – Christina Kong, MD
I went into medicine wanting to be a pediatrician. I really wanted to work with children and I love science. But, when I did my rotation in pediatrics and a child threw-up at my feet and the parents were screaming I decided I didn’t like pediatrics quite so much. So I began hunting for a specialty. I was drawn to the colors of pathology and I liked looking at the different patterns under the microscope. It was actually during my gynecology rotation, looking at pap smears, that I started to discover pathology.
We’re making diagnoses now based on smaller samples and molecular techniques. We’re moving into an age where fine needle biopsies, core needle biopsies, and obtaining samples from molecular testing are becoming more common. Another new area in the field is personalized medicine. We’re doing studies on samples so that we can actually direct therapy based on the individual patient instead of based on large studies that apply to a general population but not necessarily to an individual. We’re also looking into the sequencing of tumors more and whether that will have any effect on treatment or whether they will just confirm what we’re doing now.
One of the strengths of Practical Breast Pathology is that we emphasize the differential diagnosis and what to look for so that you don’t over-diagnose a benign lesion as malignant or miss a tumor and call it benign. The pattern-based approach helps when you’re looking at a case and you’re not sure what it shows. When you recognize a specific pattern, you can look it up in the book and get the differential diagnosis, learn about what other entities you should consider, and what stains you can do to help you make that definitive diagnosis.
Bio
Christina Kong, MD is an associate professor in the Department of Pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine. She holds clinical interest in anatomic and clinical pathology, cytopathology, gynecologic and breast pathology, and head and neck pathology. Her research focuses on improving the accuracy of cytologic diagnosis through refining diagnostic criteria and the use of ancillary techniques on specimens obtained by the minimally invasive technique of fine needle aspiration biopsy. Dr. Kong is an author of Practical Breast Pathology: A Diagnostic Approach, a volume in the Pattern Recognition series.
Dr. Kong is board-certified in anatomic and clinical pathology and cytopathology. She completed her medical degree at the University of California, San Francisco, and an internship, residency and cytopathology fellowship at the UCSF Medical Center, as well as a surgical pathology fellowship at Stanford University.
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