September 22, 2026
Judge blocks Trump administration plans to limit visa length for grad students, postdocs
From Slide to Society: Bringing Medical Ethics into Pathology Practice
Transcript
Nick Lanyi
CMS releases the 2025 MIPS scores. A CAP Foundation grant promotes ethics and pathology. And a record number of CAP members speak out. These stories and more coming up next. This is Path News Network daily edition from the College of American Pathologists. I'm Nick Lanyi. It's Tuesday, September 22nd. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released the final Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) scores for the 2025 performance year yesterday. MIPS scores are CMS’ way to measure the quality of a practice and help determine future Medicare payment adjustments. Practices should review their results and file a targeted review, if necessary. You can find more information about MIPS on the CAP website. A federal judge last week temporarily halted a new Trump administration policy that would have forced international students and researchers on non-immigrant visas to leave the U.S. after four years, even if they haven't completed their studies or projects. Since 1979, the U.S. has allowed students and researchers to remain while still engaged in academic pursuits. The judge said the Department of Homeland Security did not follow the legal process for changing the rule and is likely to lose when he makes a final ruling in the case. International students account for around 25% of PhD graduates and 60% of postdoctoral researchers in life sciences, according to Stat News. Dr. Paula Danika Binsol is a first -generation American. Her parents are from the Philippines, and she attended medical school there. Now a fourth-year pathology resident at Baylor Scott and White Health in Temple, Texas. Dr. Binsol returned to the Philippines in May for a rotation at the Jose R. Reyes Memorial Medical Center in Manila. She brought something with her, a CAP Foundation Kietges Grant for Medical Ethics, which allowed her to offer the hospital a one-day seminar and workshop about ethics in pathology and laboratory medicine. It was attended by pathology residents, laboratory staff, and medical students from throughout the Manila area. Dr. Binsol said that she found that many attendees hadn't considered the relationship between pathology and medical ethics.
Dr. Paula Danika Binsol
I feel like a lot of people think of pathology in terms of like, in the sense of like we're behind the scenes, right? So we're not really seeing patients. We don't interact with them. So there's a lot of, I think, confusion when you're like, okay, well, how do you make a wrong decision if you're not talking to anyone, right? Like how do you, how is there a risk for an unethical decision if you're not facing a patient firsthand?
Nick Lanyi
But ethical questions are sometimes related to the patient's economic status, especially in underserved areas, she told us.
Dr. Paula Danika Binsol
In the Philippines, a lot of these patients, they're poor. You know, they're not making more than $10 a day, if even that. And so when it comes to ancillary testing or kind of typifying a tumor or like trying to figure out a genetic mutation, those are all out-of-pocket costs for them. And so the question is: do I tell this patient, like, hey, we could send your tumor for molecular testing, but it has to get on a plane, it has to go to Singapore, it's going to cost you probably like your entire three-year salary, if even that, if you can even find it or someone could help you, or do I let them decide that that's like money better put toward making sure their child goes to school or that their funeral costs are covered, or they can put food on the table for the next few months after they've passed away. And so the decision making, I think, in the Philippines becomes almost heavier because the responsibility is so much more felt in that sense.
Nick Lanyi
Dr. Binsol says she's passionate about the CAP Foundation's mission to expand pathology in underserved areas.
Dr. Paula Danika Binsol
To know that there are so many people in the world that really just need a diagnosis and can't get one is something that I grapple with a lot, especially having gone to school in the Philippines and seeing it firsthand.
Nick Lanyi
And finally, CAP members really stepped up in response to our latest action alert on the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule proposed rule. More than 1,100 pathologists submitted comments to CMS before the September 14th deadline. It was the largest regulatory advocacy response in CAP history. When policymakers hear directly from those affected, it makes a big difference. So thank you to everyone who submitted a comment. That's all for today. See the show notes for more information on today's stories. And if you have a story you'd like us to cover, write to us at stories at CAP.org. We'll be back Wednesday at 5 a.m. Eastern for another episode of the Daily Edition. I'm Nick Lanyi. Have a wonderful day.