Considerations and Tips

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In General

The following points are meant to help candidates to become better prepared for the questions and getting some ideas about what is needed in order to pass the examination. 
•    If you are below the 50% rate at the examination, you most likely sat the examination too early.
•    The basis for your training should be at least 3 years of vigorous every-day training and studying, possibly accompanied by specific courses such as the ECVP Summer School.
•    Make all efforts to ensure your writing is legible, for the Comprehensive part. Any doubt in the clarity of the writing and subsequent understanding will result in no points.
•    Do not use abbreviations, especially for morphological diagnosis (Transmissible Venereal Tumor, not TVT), etiology (Canine Parvovirus Type 2, not CPV-2 ; Mycobacterium bovis, not M. bovis), names of diseases (Feline Infectious Peritonitis, not FIP) ; otherwise you will not get points. Abbreviations should be restricted to the common scientific vocabulary (DNA, RNA, PCR) and genes.
•    If you are asked two causes, only give two, not three, otherwise no points will be allocated.

Read the question carefully and be as precise as possible in your answers and descriptions.

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In General:
•    Train for speed and endurance to describe 20 slides in one session.
•    Be precise, concise and use appropriate terminology:
o    For tissue identification: “muscle” is imprecise. For instance, is it smooth, striated skeletal or cardiac muscle?
o    In your description avoid redundancies and buzz words: “numerous” is faster to write and will give you as many points as “large number of…”
 
Know your anatomy/histology:
•    Study recognizing endocrine organs, central nervous system and genital organs (i.e. mammary versus salivary gland, brainstem versus neurohypophysis, pancreas versus adenohyposhysis etc.)
•    Be as specific as possible (i.e. gallbladder or urinary bladder, not only bladder)
•    Specify the anatomy also within the description (i.e. within the renal medulla or affecting the renal cortex, in which layer of the mucosa?)
 
Know specific variations of different species:
•    Granulomas and inflammatory cells of reptiles, fish and certain rodents are different than those of mammals.
 
Look at all the tissue/whole slide:
•    Check the slide without the microscope (subgross examination)
•    In the tissue around a neoplasm, there may be important changes that are more relevant for the animal’s health than the actual tumor (i.e. Leishmaniasis in a skin with hemangioma)
•    A slide may contain two organs, which are anatomically attached to each other such as pituitary and rete mirabilis
•    Make sure that there is a logical connection between your description and the morphological diagnosis
 
Always include quantitative modifiers:
•    As an example for inflammatory cells: many lymphocytes, fewer plasma cells, some neutrophils (Use the order of decreasing of quantity)
•    Use the basic rule: what, where and how many
•    Make sure that you are familiar with board-style descriptions. Practice this with your supervisor
 
Read the question carefully:
•    Is the question: name the disease, the etiology or the etiologic diagnosis?
•    Always answer the one most likely
 
Trust on what you see in the slide and on what you know:
•    Inventing things will lead to loss of points
•    Check a finding to the size and stain when interpreting things (i.e. Mycobacteria are not seen in H&E stains, describe the size of urates)
•    Do not fixate on a disease and make your description fitting this imagined disease (i.e. mycobacteriosis and porcine multisystem wasting syndrome exist without multinucleated giant cells)
•    There are other disease-processes than tumors and inflammation
•    It is not enough to name specific inflammatory cells without description, for example: 80-100µm in size cell, with peripherally arrnaged nuclei (multinucleated giant cells, Langhans type)
•    Cell sizes are given in description of tumors and cytology preparations
 
Electron microscopy:
•    Describe everything, including normal structures, using the correct terminology. This differs from the general guide lines of the histopathology examination
•    Know how to recognize cell type/tissue
•    Have an idea about relative sizes of structures and organisms. You need to know roughly how large a virus is in order not to mistakenly diagnose a bacterium
 
Cytology:
•    The cytology is the only exception where the organ and the sampling method (i.e. smear from an exudate, fine needle aspiration, impression from an organ) are given. This is important in order to figure out a list of differential hypotheses (disease processes) already before looking at the slide. By reading the organ and the sampling method, you should already know what you expect to see in the slide
•    You have to be able to classify the cells (normal, hyperplastic, neoplastic, inflammatory) and always remember to evaluate the acellular component of the slide (background, granules, crystals, etc.)
•    As in any other slide, the cells have to be recognized. Experience is fundamental in this case in order to distinguish different cell types. In cytology almost all cells are individualized and roundish and you cannot rely on architecture as you do when you read histology. However, when clustered, you can often gain more information i.e. epithelial or mesenchymal. All cells have to be described and interpreted
•    The final judgment and the morphological diagnosis must be consistent with your previous description
 

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•    Organ: be as specific as possible
•    Commonly asked questions include the following:
o    Morphologic diagnosis: name the lesion in specific pathologic anatomic terms, including all modifiers (severe acute multifocal ulcerative esophagitis, severe visceral urate deposition). Do not forget bilateral symmetrical etc., if appropriate
o    Etiology or likely cause: name the cause as specific as possible: Leptospira canicola, lead poisoning, genetic defect
o    Name the disease: give the commonly used appellation of the shown case (visceral gout, canine distemper)
o    Etiologic diagnosis: name the organ and the most likely disease process/cause (viral pneumonia, mycobacterial enteritis, uremic gastritis)
o    Differential diagnosis: give one diagnosis for another lesion or disease that would resemble the first diagnosis (lymphadenitis – malignant lymphoma).
o    Pathogenesis: list or describe briefly the series of pathogenetic events that resulted in the lesion or disease shown (glomerular amyloidosis > proteinuria > hypoalbunemia > decreased plasma colloid pressure > generalized edema)
 

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  • Read the questions carefully, especially regarding methods such as IHC, Western blot etc. is the question about the protein level, the RNA level or the DNA level?
  • Be concise in your answer.
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Laboratory animal Veterinary Pathology subsection

Definition of “Well established or well described” animal models of human disease
By “WELL-ESTABLISHED”, the Examination Committee understands animal models that are commonly used by the scientific community based on the capacity to obtain/reproduce this model and on its detailed pathologic characterization. Examples include: transgenic RasH2 mice, bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis in rodents, collagen-induced arthritis in rats, or SIV in non-human primates.
By “WELL-DESCRIBED”, the Examination Committee understands animal models with good macro/microscopic characterization, regardless of it being reported for the first time or it being commonly used by the research community.
Please note that knowledge on the relevance of animal models because it is subjective and debatable, will not be tested.


Questions on “Well established or well described” animal models of human disease
The questions will mainly focus on the morphologic macro/microscopic characterization of the model and pathogenesis, as generally for the examination. 
The questions will not focus on:
•    how to technically create an animal model. This applies to the paper selection as well: only papers including gross and/or microscopic descriptions of the models are in the scope.
•    In vitro research models of human diseases
•    Satellite Symposium Issues” of Toxicologic Pathology 
•    Animal models of diseases affecting domestic animals
•    Animals models presented in the book “Nonhuman Primates in Biomedical Research”out of the chapters 1, 2, 4. These chapters (i.e, other than 1, 2, 4 and 6) are NOT included as source of questions since, to date, the 2nd and last edition of this book is dated 2012. 

KO and KI mice are often employed to study the role of a gene, although they might not necessarily represent an animal model of human disease per se. These papers are of lower priority but might be considered as long as they include good pathology descriptions. 
Questions are generally taken from the reading list. However, as generally for the examination, papers in journals outside the reading list might be taken into consideration (e.g., reviews on well-established animal models).
Induced animal models are not included in the Gross Pathology and Histopathology parts of the examination.

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  • Read the questions carefully – are you requested to summarize some results or to interpret the meaning of the results?
  • Be concise in your description and analysis.
  • When asked to describe and interpret for example survival curves, do not interpret other data you may be presented with.
  • Briefly means succinct and Do not waste time to fill the pages beyond the offered lines: the space we provide is mostly sufficient to answer the question.
  • Again, write legibly, if it cannot be read it won’t get any points.
  • Clearly distinguish between describing results (3 % decrease of survival rate) and interpretation (compound X administration does not alter survival rate after a 28-day study)