It has been an unusually challenging time for those of us who have devoted our lives and careers to delivering high quality laboratory medicine care to our fellow Canadians. We are almost all currently being affected by a pan-Canadian shortage of pathologists, Pathologists' Assistants, Technologists – essentially all personnel throughout the lab. Our case volumes rise while the cases themselves get more complex. Our division/department budgets are uniformly stretched beyond belief. Simultaneously we must grapple with questions around how to implement new workflows (such as digital pathology), and every week we are presented with new technical innovations that could impact our practice and potentially change how we provide and deliver patient care.

Following a recent meeting with the CAP-ACP board, I wanted to let you know that we have elected to confront some of these impactful challenges head on. To start, the CAP-ACP would like to endorse and support the efforts of our Workload & Human Resources Committee, who are in the final stages of submitting their conclusions for publication. The board has identified workload issues as one of the key strategic priorities that the CAP-ACP must address to ensure that Canadians across the country benefit from high quality clinical care. 

The inaugural CAP-ACP Digital Pathology and Precision Medicine Summit will take place in Montreal on May 8^th and 9^th.

The morning of Thursday, May 8, is focused on practical issues around implementing a digital workflow, and codifying guidelines for Canadian Pathology.

The afternoon will be focus on "Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Tools for Use in Diagnostic Pathology". Not only will we hear presentations from industry and pathologist leaders, but we will also hear from our radiology colleagues who will share their experience about how to retain professional autonomy and ensure that pathologists are involved in the adoption, implementation, quality control, and innovation with regards to AI in laboratory-based diagnostic medicine.

Friday, May 9, will see our industry partners give us a closed-door look into new upcoming therapies that they believe will be approved in the coming years. After learning about these new therapies and exploring the consequent biomarker tests that we will be required to implement in order to allow our fellow Canadians to benefit from these new therapies, we will have an open discussion with provincial leaders, funders, and Canadian regulatory agencies including the Canadian Drug Agency about the regulatory landscape for precision biomarker test development.

The deadline to register for the Summit is Friday, April 18 at 5:00 PM ET. Registration is free for Department Heads. Seating is limited and the event is expected to sell out. Please note that there will be no onsite or same-day registration. For logistical and safety reasons, registration will close firmly on April 21 at 5:00 PM ET (and capped at 180 participants), as we must submit final attendance numbers to the venue by the following morning (9:00 a.m., April 22). Due to fire safety regulations, the facility has a strict capacity limit. If the event reaches capacity, we will maintain a waitlist, as cancellations are anticipated.

The Summit program, hotel information and registration are available here: https://cap-acp.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1916879

Of course, we are also tremendously excited to welcome you all to our 2025 Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM) in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The ASM program and registration are available here: https://cap-acp.org/page/asm-2025. 

Those of you who were able to attend the ASM may already know that we have revised our membership categories to include new categories for non-physician members (with appropriately adjusted membership dues). As the organization representing diagnostic and molecular pathology, as well as diagnostic and clinical pathology, we are excited to welcome more voices from within the lab into this organization, expanding on the superb work of our Pathology Assistants section, the CCCPA and the CCCPLS.

I am also tremendously excited to announce that our 2026 annual scientific meeting will be a joint meeting with the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP), which will be hosted here in Canada in Montreal Québec. The ASCP is well-known to many of us and is the oldest lab medicine specialty society in Canada and the United States.

I am sensitive to the reality that it’s a challenging time for all Canadians, and the CAP-ACP and the ASCP consider this an opportunity to remind us all: “Pathology has no borders". The ASCP’s motto is “Stronger Together”, and their decision to hold their meeting in Canada reflects a commitment to this ethos. The ASCP has a remarkably diverse membership, so our new non-physician members will have unique and dedicated content (this represents a new kind of educational content which has never yet been delivered a CAP-ACP in-person meeting). One of our new benefits of membership is to permit each other to register for and attend the other Party's annual scientific meeting, at the member registration rate, and any educational opportunity whether in person or virtual, (provided that you are a member in good standing at the time of registration). Members must present proof of membership upon request.

In more mundane matters, many of you have seen our new website. Do not hesitate to provide feedback, or to let us know if there are parts of the new site that require attention. We are still learning about some of the new capabilities of this site, and this should make it much easier for you to keep track of your participation, and especially your educational activities. Poke around your member profile area to see discussion forums, directory and more...

The CAP-ACP a voluntary professional organization, advances the interests of our profession and promotes high quality standards for patient care by providing national leadership and promoting excellence in pathology and laboratory medicine practice, education and research for over 75 years.

With my warm regards, and wishing you a happy and healthy spring,
 
Jason Karamchandani, MD
President CAP-ACP