Survey Data and Experience from a Pediatric Pathology Workshop in Indonesia: Understanding Practice Needs and Utility of Outreach Teachings

Abstract

Objective: We aimed to share the post-workshop survey results of a pediatric pathology course held in Jakarta, Indonesia. Methods: Questionnaires were distributed to participants; responses from practicing pathologists and pathologists-in-training were analyzed. Results: The respondents (107 pathologists of 143 attendees) were predominantly female (83.2%) and 31–60 years of age (77.5%). Over half (71.7%) signed out pediatric and perinatal specimens but only a third (34.3%) were comfortable handling such cases. Most (70.0%) felt that their exposure to pediatric and perinatal cases during their training was inadequate. All respondents thought that the workshop was helpful, and would highly recommend it to their colleagues. Post-workshop, the respondents claimed expansion of differential diagnoses (49.5%) and better understanding of what to include in pathology reports (41.1%). Conclusions: Our experience affirms the need for subspecialty courses to address training gaps in developing countries. Post-workshop surveys are helpful in determining actionable deficiencies and effectiveness of outreach teachings.

Keywords:

• Pediatric pathology
• Indonesia
• Southeast Asia
• workshop
• outreach teaching

Acknowledgments

The course co-directors, Drs. J. Putra and C.K. Carreon, would like to acknowledge the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Indonesia and IAP-Indonesia for helping organize the course. We also would like to thank the workshop attendees for their enthusiastic participation and the International Academy of Pathology Central Education Committee for the Education Meeting Support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.