Letter from the Program Director

Fabiola Balarezo, M.D.Welcome!

The Hartford Hospital Anatomic and Clinical Pathology Residency is an ACGME-accredited program with 12 residents. Our learners experience a wide variety of cases in our high-volume surgical pathology and cytopathology services under the supervision and teaching of highly qualified and dedicated faculty. Our program also provides our residents with both knowledge and clinical experiences in all aspects of clinical pathology, as well as, a dedicated elective rotation in laboratory management in order to better prepare our residents to take a lead role in any laboratory medicine service.

Hartford Hospital is an 870-bed hospital, the largest of multiple hospitals in Connecticut under the Hartford Healthcare Corporation. Our campus also houses the 97-bed CT Children’s Medical Center, providing additional invaluable educational material to our learners. A somewhat unique arrangement in this program is that although the residency is administered by HH, the faculty is mostly staffed by Hartford Pathology Associates (HPA), a private practice group, which has a full complement of subspecialty-trained pathologists, garnering referrals from other local hospitals. However, our surgical pathologists also practice as “generalists” which serves the program well by honing the skills of our residents for the “bread and butter” of pathology.

Our program is not university-based but there is ample opportunity for teaching and research. We host rotations for 3rd-year and 4th-year medical students from nearby University of Connecticut and Quinnipiac medical colleges, as well as, medical schools from all over the country. Research is actively supported with mentoring, study design development and financial support for our learners so they can present abstracts at national meetings and/or publish their studies.

It is with great pride to claim that some of the best in the field came from our program and, our faculty, many of whom are our own products and have gone to learn from the country’s most competitive fellowship programs, chose to come back and practice here. I am very proud to say that this program prepared me well in the practice of surgical pathology and cytopathology.

Sincerely,

Fabiola Balarezo, M.D.
Program Director
Pathology Residency Program