Pei Hui, MD, PhD, is a pathologist who specializes in gynecological diseases and cancers, including endometrial, ovarian, and fallopian tube cancers.
“You understand disease better through pathology,” Dr. Hui says. “You learn how it develops and its mechanisms at a cellular and molecular level.”
Dr. Hui points out that although pathologists rarely see patients face-to-face, they are still in charge of the well-being of the patient through the microscopic diagnosis. “We look at 30 to 50 cases each day, so in a way you could say that we see more patients than any other physician,” he says.
Dr. Hui says that he enjoys working as a team to provide better care for patients. For example, on any given day, he might be talking via phone, email, or text, to a patient’s oncologist or doctor. “We are informative for them because we provide timely and accurate diagnosis and using new biomarkers that may change the patient treatment options. The boundary between physician and pathologist is smaller than ever.”
What most excites Dr. Hui is the ability to improve diagnostic accuracy and find new biomarkers to guide clinical management for patients and prognosis. He continues his research in that area as professor and director of gynecologic pathology at Yale School of Medicine.
