A Letter from Our Program Director

Dr. Anne Mills, Program Director

No matter where you go for residency, you will learn to handle transfusion reactions, recognize the hook effect, and be able to diagnose fibroadenomas and glioblastomas. There are a variety of environments that accomplish these and all the other necessary goals of any pathology residency, and we look forward to sharing what makes our environment a unique, challenging, and supportive one for our trainees.

At UVA, we prepare you to be excellent diagnosticians and help you evolve into physician leaders. Our goal is not to craft our residents in our own image, but to prepare the next crop of diverse physicians to become the pathologists they aspire to be: this ranges from top-notch academics who go on to publish prolifically to trusted hospital-based pathologists who help guide the care of their community, from cutting-edge molecular innovators to whip-smart forensic pathologists.

Central to cultivating physician leadership is a sense of ownership: both of the patients for whom you care and of your own education. We respect our residents as peers and provide them with graduated independence to help them realize their potential. From Day One, UVA pathology residents are expected to have a patient-centered approach to their work. This means communicating well, asking for and giving feedback, taking responsibility for your learning, teaching frequently to a variety of audiences, and being open to opportunities. As you progress through your training, you are given increased supervised autonomy to give you the skills and confidence for independent practice.

Our program also fosters your development by engaging residents in departmental committees (such as our QA, wellness, and curriculum committees), by fostering resident-driven research (our trainees have served as first-author on more than 30 publications in the last several years, and have contributed to many more), and by supporting your participation in public health efforts both through advocacy for healthcare access on the Hill in D.C. to global outreach through our Guatemala partnership. Finally, we support your professional development by attending to the “hidden curriculum” of residency training: fostering the interpersonal skills that will help you mediate conflict, manage mistakes, recognize and combat bias, and handle stress adeptly and with compassion both for yourself and for others. You will have role models and coaching to help you build a growth mindset, and will be provided with wellness resources both through our department and our institution.

We are so pleased that you are interested in learning more about our program and look forward to introducing you to our dedicated faculty, close-knit residents, and invested staff!

Sincerely,

Anne Mills, MD
Associate Professor of Pathology
Pathology Residency Program Director
University of Virginia