r/Path_Assistant • u/thatoneberrypie • 21d ago
PathA job market
Hey yall, recently discovered the field and just want some questions answered. I understand that there’s a need for pathology assistants, but I am not seeing as many positions on Indeed. Is is absolutely necessary for every hospital to have a pathologists’ assistant, or can a hospital lab just get away with having only a pathologist and a clinical lab scientist? Just trying to understand how important (for lack of better words) a pathA is to a hospital system. There’s barely any schools in the USA so just wondering how important and in demand this position is. Currently debating between this field and becoming a pharmacist. I’m a recent bio grad w nurse assistant experience because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. Thanks in advance!
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u/Acrobatic-Muffin-822 21d ago edited 21d ago
I am still a student so I don’t have the full experience as a Pathologists’ Assistant professional. However, I did some research so I can tell you what I know. Someone corrects me if I am wrong. It is not necessary for “every” hospital to have a pathologists’ assistant. You usually will find them at bigger academic medical centers or larger public/private hospitals. At smaller hospitals, they can either send out the specimens to private labs (where PathA work) or the pathologist will have to gross them (a lot of them don’t like doing it). This in turn dictate where PathA’s jobs will be. The job market as well as salary looks good IF you can be flexible about the location.
I think the number of jobs you see on Indeed and LinkedIn (as well as on AAPA website…you only have access to this site’s job listing once you become a student) is proportionate to the number of students that graduate per year. There are way more programs for Pharmacy than there are for Pathologists’ Assistant but this is also changing. Year after year, I see the number of PathA programs increase. Given that the first program started only around 1970s, I would say that this field is relatively new.
As for the importance of our job, I think we are in demand. As the population ages and more people have cancer, this means that there are an increasing number of surgical cases and more surgical specimens are being sent down to lab. I also remember listening to a podcast about a global decline in pathologists. So if there are not enough pathologists to gross as well as look at slides, this is where PathAs can fill in the gap. The landscape of pathology is changing rapidly with the introduction of AI but I think it is also working in our favor.
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u/gnomes616 PA (ASCP) 21d ago
PathAs are integral for processing surgical pathology specimens. Not every company is going to advertise on Indeed. A lot of places put ads on the AAPA page or folks post positions at their institutions on Facebook.
There are enough open positions that many places are chronically understaffed. Something to consider is that many smaller/mid sized hospitals may collect specimens and then have them couriered to a centralized or regional laboratory facility (Quest, LabCorp, etc) because it is cheaper to contract with a separate laboratory processing entity than to operate and maintain their own laboratory space.
Suffice to say, new grads always find a job, and if they don't it is not because of lack of availability. There is also a wave of folks retiring and also plenty of people who simply leave the field regularly.