International Medical Graduates and the Shortage of US Pathologists

To the Editor.-The authors of "International Medical Graduates and the Shortage of US Pathologists"1 cite superseded research in declaring a substantial decline in the number of active pathologists practicing in the United States. In 2020, members of the College of American Pathologists (CAP) found that the data source used in the cited research, the Physician Specialty Data Book from the Academy of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), reported only a subset of pathologists (anatomic, clinical, anatomic/clinical, or chemical pathology) and did not include pathologists whose primary data set classification was in any of 11 recognized subspecialty areas, including blood banking/transfusion medicine, cytopathology, hematopathology, or microbiology.2 The authors estimated that this approach understated US pathologist supply by nearly 40% in 2019. With regard to the shortage of US physicians, the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act would, if enacted, increase Medicare-supported graduate medical education positions by 14000 during a period of 7 years; if a reasonable proportion of these slots were allocated to training pathologists, this would help to address the shortage.