Rick Fraser, President of the Centenary International Congress of the IAP in 2006 above left and Louis Lamarre, Chair, Local Arrangements Committee.

Rick Fraser, President of the Centenary International Congress of the IAP, Louis Lamarre and the organising committee of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology, invite all members of the IAP to join them in Montreal for an outstanding scientific meeting, and to celebrate the centenary of the founding of the IAP by Maude Abbott.

Maude worked at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. A plaque on the archway at the entrance to the University of Edinburgh Medical School in Scotland, commemorates the strong association that existed between that University and McGill. The plaque proclaims that the four founders of the Faculty of Medicine at McGill - William Caldwell, Andrew R. Holmes, William Robertson and John Stephenson were graduates of the University of Edinburgh Medical School.

Plaque to commemorate the fact that the four founders of the Faculty of Medicine at Mc Gill University in 1821 were Edinburgh graduates

Another plaque on the entrance archway commemorates the historical links between the Edinburgh Medical School and North America between 1749 and 1799. The architecture of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary (which was closed in 2003 when the hospital was moved to new modern premises at another location) is quite reminiscent of the architecture of what is now the “old” Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal.

Plaque to recognize the historical links between the Edinburgh University Medical School and North America between 1749 and 1799.

Above and below: The Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal.

Below: Note the similarity of the Montreal architecture to the recently closed Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

The University of Edinburgh was only one of the famous European Universities from which the newly developing universities of North America drew their staff members and their inaugural inspiration.

Edinburgh Castle dominates the skyline of central Edinburgh.

The first meeting to discuss the formation of an International Society was held at the Army Medical Museum in Washington in May 1906. It was decided to call the new society the International Association of Medical Museums. At that time, Pathology consisted of Morbid Anatomy and Bacteriology. Many Professors were appointed as Professor of Morbid Anatomy and Bacteriology. Some Professors of Medicine or Surgery were also responsible for the Pathology in the Medical School and the associated Teaching Hospital. The founders of the IAMM noted the “waste of teaching material” at so many of the Universities in North America, and they wanted to overcome this because “pathology museums were very important in the teaching of Medicine.”

They wanted to establish a directory of specimens held by the various museums so that there could be swopping (trading) of specimens between museums. They also wanted to establish a forum for an exchange of ideas on the technology of making specimen containers, the methods of displaying specimens and using them for effective teaching. In fact the 32 editions of the “News Bulletin “ of the IAMM that appeared between 1907 and 1951 dealt mainly with these subjects. The last article of that era in the News Bulletin was a well illustrated one on the construction of perspex specimen jars, and the use of Kaiserling preservative.

Above: McEwan Hall, University of Edinburgh Medical School.

Behind the Hall is the Medical School with the entrance archway opening off the street.

Behind the archway is the courtyard of the Medical School.

By 1951, Pathology had changed dramatically and the emphasis was now on Surgical Pathology. Hence it was appropriate that the second 50 years of the life of the IAMM should be much changed from that of the first 50 years.

The famous Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore was William Osler. He was a Canadian who graduated from Mc Gill in 1872. He was appointed to the staff of Mc Gill in 1875 as Lecturer in Physiology, Professor of Medicine and Pathologist to the hospital. He became Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins in 1884 and then Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford, England in 1905. He strongly supported Maude Abbott in her efforts to form the AIMM. The aims of the Association were clearly sentiments with which he strongly agreed.

On April 16 1907 there was a fire in McGill University that destroyed most of the 3000 specimens in the Medical Museum. This occurred just before the inaugural meeting of the AIMM in Washington. Osler attended this meeting and both he and Maude must have been greatly affected by this catastrophic event. So much so, that in the first edition of the News Bulletin they appealed to the Medical Schools around the world to help them replace their Museum as quickly as possible, by donating surplus specimens to them. Within a year or two, over 3,000 specimens had been donated and a new Museum was constructed, thanks to a donation from Lord Strathcona, a former Governor General of Canada.

The first formal meeting of the IAMM was held at the Army Medical Museum in Washington. Major James Carroll, Curator of the Museum was the inaugural President. The Army Museum went on to become the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. This explains why the AFIP has such an intimate association with the IAP. The first meeting was truly an International one. The vice Presidents were: William McCallum (Johns Hopkins Medical School); J. Ritchie (Oxford University, England); Ludwig Aschoff (University of Freiburg, Germany) There were delegates from many other countries, including Australia.

Memorial to Queen Victoria in the grounds of the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal.

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This Division is one of the larger Divisions. It continues to be extremely active in providing continuing post graduate education courses, both regional and national. Most of these are conducted in French, but at least once a year they have a conference in English to which they invite English speaking lecturers. They have just designed a new logo which has been “struck” as a gold medal to be presented to members who have given distinguished service to the Division. The first medal was presented to Marcel Bouc, the retiring Treasurer at the 2004 Annual General Meeting.

The Division is a strong supporter of divisions in neighbouring countries – Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe in particular.

During 2005 and 2006 Francis Jaubert, a former President of the French Division, will be President of the International committee of the IAP. It is appropriate that he will be President of the International Congress to be held in Montreal, Canada, September 17 to 21, 2006. There has been a strong French influence in North America since the earliest days of European settlement. This has emanated particularly from Montreal, a city where French is the first language of many of its citizens.

The French Division is now in the hands of its very capable President, Frederique Capron of the Hopital Pitie-Salpetriere in Paris. The day to day affairs of the Division are efficiently conducted from a small office in Lyon by the “three ladies of Lyon.” ( Les trois dames de Lyon.) – Christiane Bailly (Editor of the beautifully produced Bulletin of the Division); Michele Fontaniere (Secretary); and Chantal Donne (former President, and now Secretary for International Relations.)

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This seminar on External Quality Assurance (QA) Programs brought together four excellent speakers (Drs Zarbo, Furness, Hirokawa and Davies) and their experiences from the countries they represented – USA, United Kingdom, Japan and Australia respectively. While the United Kingdom has a slide based QA program where individuals participate, Australia currently uses a mainly laboratory based, slide based QA program. The USA model is quite different. It is laboratory based and uses timed limited quality improvement studies “ Q-probes” to assess various aspects of surgical pathology. Japan’s QA program is in the planning phase and the QA working group in Japan) is currently surveying pathologists to decide what approach is most suitable for their situation.

There was valuable exchange of ideas in the discussion that followed the talks.
Dr Zarbo said a slide based program was not feasible in the USA because of the fear of its use as part of litigation proceedings. In United Kingdom, this has not been a problem as there is a confidential code numbering system. If however persistent substandard performance is observed the scheme organizer sends a letter to the participant (unaware of who they are) pointing out the situation. Since its introduction in the mid 1990’s only one participant has required referral to an Advisory Panel and a resolution was quickly achieved. It is well known that in Australia the material provided for QA has deficiencies, as it does not reflect the usual mix of material a pathologist reports. The external QA program in Australia is therefore looking at using a virtual microscope as a way of addressing some of these deficiencies in the program. Dr J Mason, co convenor of this session, suggested if any attendees at the IAP Congress were interested in being involved in a survey on key issues in quality assurance they could contact him via email at John.Mason@med.va.gov after the meeting.

Jane Dahlstrom

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The IAP Education Committee is a full/free standing committee of the IAP.
It currently meets at the annual USCAP/IAP Meeting and at the biennial International Congress of the IAP.

In future, to ensure that the IAP Education Committee meets twice a year, there are plans to meet in the Autumn (August) of the inter-Congress years, possibly during the European Society of Pathology Meetings.

All requests for financial support for Scientific Meetings are to be sent in the first instance to the Chairman of the IAP Education Committee.

Requests that are approved by the Education Committee will be forwarded to the IAP Finance Committee for payment.

In making applications please note:
• Requests for financial support from IAP Divisions or Members for Divisional Meetings or other scientific activities should, if possible, be received three months in advance of the Education Committee Meetings.
• Details of the purpose and scientific content of the planned Scientific Meeting are required.
• Funds applied for must specify not only their intended use but also be accompanied by the estimated costs in US dollars; eg. travel cost(s) of Lecturer(s) amounting to $xxxx.xx.
• Preference is given to under-served Divisions who have difficulty in obtaining funds from other sources and/or sponsorship from other Divisions.
• Divisions should not apply for financial support on an annual basis.
• Scientific meetings supported by the IAP must display the IAP logo on brochures.
• At the conclusion of meetings supported by the IAP, a full report including financial details, must be received by the IAP Education Committee.
The next IAP Education Committee Meeting is on February 27th 2005 at the USCAP Meeting in San Antonio, Texas, USA.

Kristin Henry
Chairman, Education Committee
Email: k.henry@imperial.ac.uk

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Daria Haust and Harry Jellinek at the International Congress of the IAP in Budapest, Hungary in 1996.

Harry Jellinek a prominent Hungarian pathologist died on January 6, 2005 aged 80. He spent all his professional life in the Budapest University, being Chairman of the second Department of Pathology in the Semmelweiss University from 1968 until 1993. (He was followed in this position by Anna Kadar, a former President of the IAP.)

In spite of great political difficulties he maintained contact with pathologists in “the West,” and helped his students to have work experience outside Hungary. He was the foundation President of the Hungarian Division of the IAP from 1972-80. His research interest was in vascular diseases, particularly atherosclerosis. He received a number of prestigious awards both National and International for his contributions to Medicine and to society.

Compiled from information provided by Daria Haust, University of Western Ontario, Canada.

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