Merging a Pathology Career with Military Service

Nick Lanyi
0:02

The CDC's plan to transform the agency. A new MRI contrast agent may detect cancer earlier than CT scans. And merging a pathology career with military service. 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 Friday, September 18th. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it will revamp to focus on emergency public health responses and infectious diseases while aligning with the Trump administration's Make America Healthy Again priorities. The agency launched the so-called Enterprise Transformation Initiative amid ongoing scrutiny of its handling of high-profile public health issues, including the COVID epidemic and recent measles-related deaths. CDC leaders say they will hold listening sessions about the agency's future in the coming months. A new approach to MRIs may allow doctors to be able to detect some cancers earlier. Researchers at Emory University and Georgia State University reported on a new MRI contrast agent that binds to collagen, which accumulates around tumors. They detected tiny lung tumors in animal models that CT scans could not, and they found metastasized tissue in adrenal glands and kidneys that the CT scan missed. The study, published in Science Advances, noted that the findings are preliminary, and the new contrast agent has not yet been tested in humans. And finally, Dr. Couger Jimenez Jaramillo is a board certified pathologist and researcher. She's also a major in the U.S. Air Force, assistant professor of pathology at the Uniformed Services University, and an adjunct staff pathologist at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and a member of the CAP Neuropathology Committee. In a recent CAP Foundation podcast, she said a high school tour of a pathology laboratory helped light the spark.

Dr. Couger Jimenez Jaramillo
2:24

We got to talk to the folks who worked there, and I guess I asked too many questions or seemed a little too interested. Um, because he said, have you considered like doing something like this? Like consider pathology.

Nick Lanyi
2:33

Her interest in military service stemmed from her family background.

Dr. Couger Jimenez Jaramillo
2:37

Both my brother and I were raised by two parents who were first generation college students. My father and his family immigrated here from Mexico. If you go back one more generation, um none of my grandparents have high school diplomas, and both of us now hold Harvard degrees. And I think as I was, you know, 19, 20, nearing the end of my undergraduate studies and looking at deciding what kind of a career I wanted, I just felt very um grateful for lack of a better word, and I wanted to express that gratitude in a really concrete way.

Nick Lanyi
3:04

After college, she attended medical school at the University of Pennsylvania on an Air Force Health Professions Scholarship program. Her medical and military training happened concurrently for several years, which helped her when she began practicing.

Dr. Couger Jimenez Jaramillo
3:19

I think by the time you get to medical school, everyone's smart. You know, everyone knows how to study, everyone is dedicated. Uh, it's the soft skills I think that you have to work on a little bit better. How to communicate, how to give the right answer when you're tired, right, or frustrated or can't think straight how to keep your bearing. And those are all things that military training really helps to reinforce.

Nick Lanyi
3:42

Now she helps run the laboratory at the famed Walter Reed Hospital while also conducting research on neuropathology, brain injury, molecular diagnostics, and the use of emerging technologies. Pathology, she says, gives her another way to serve.

Dr. Couger Jimenez Jaramillo
3:57

You know, we get into medicine because we want to help people, right? I think that's like by and the biggest draw by and large. Um, pathology is really cool because I don't just help a number of people that I can, you know, speed see on a day in clinic, you know, 10 minutes apiece. I get a stack of, you know, 50 cases. And that day I get to help 50 people. I get to I get to give 50 people an answer when they say, hey, something's hurting, something doesn't make sense. I'm scared, I don't know what this is. So I get to give 50 people answers, and I think that we're able to help a lot of people.

Nick Lanyi
4:28

That's all for today. See the show notes for more information on today's stories. And if you've got a story to share, write us at stories at CAP.org. We'll be back Tuesday at 5 a.m. Eastern for another episode of the Daily Edition. I'm Nick Lanyi. Have a wonderful weekend.