Watch Lisa-Jean Clifford’s Interview with Dr. Michael Becich
Michael Becich, MD, PhD
Chairman and Distinguished University Professor, Department of Biomedical Informatics
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
Session Highlights:
“API and Pathology Informatics leadership needs to encourage young people to present their science at the PI Summit even if it’s in the early stages of development. It is important for trainees to be encouraged to join API and attend the Path Info Summit as it increases their chances of having a career in Path Info by 60%…. Pathology Informatics Leaders already established in the field have to encourage pathology residents and fellows (and even college and high school students via STEMM) to consider Pathology and Pathology Informatics as a career path.”
Q: “Thank you so much for sharing your time with us. I was wondering what informatics-based skill do you find most valuable (or are actively looking for) in your new hires?”
A: “Data science, data wrangling and data analytics and learning how to create knowledge from raw data, including how to take identified images/identifiable HIPAA data and turn it into something usable for de-identified research questions. Data scientists can get a job out of college starting at $100K if you can create knowledge from data. You must love to solve problems through data wrangling if you want to be in informatics.
Q: “When you are recruiting a hire for UPitt, what are your considerations in comparing candidates who learned on the job vs. a candidate who did a structured program such as an informatics fellowship? Is board-certification important to you?”
A: “The most important to me are skills as well as someone that has passion to put to a key aligned purpose. I look for a recruit’s innovative spark. I have interviewees (or career mentors) do a “Blue Sky Exercise” which helps me to assess their passion, what they enjoy doing, what the world needs and what they will. (For Blue Sky exercise, CLICK HERE)
Q: “You mentioned companies getting cold feet – what do you think about the role of venture capital in start-up development?”
A: “There’s no corporate model for data sharing in Pathology. Data is the new “gold” for innovation and we need to recognize how valuable both clinical and anatomic pathology data is key to both biomedical discover and therapeutic innovation. Sharing of EHR data is a new innovation that has helped the industry as well as NIH funded research (especially in the COVID era). 70% of all data that is generated and decisions that affect patient life comes from Pathology. We need a national pathology sharing network and become central to national patient phenotyping efforts.”
