Consultant Cellular Pathologist interest in Lung & Haematopathology

Job overview

The Department of Cellular Pathology is seeking a full-time (10 PA) or part-time (8 PA) consultant to join a dynamic and supportive team of colleagues.  The post holder must have a demonstrable major interest in lung pathology and haematopathology with a current diagnostic haematopathology and lung pathology practice. The department is involved in many exciting initiatives, and we are looking for an individual with appropriate skills to complement the teams and keep the service at the forefront of clinical and academic excellence.

As an organisation, we are committed to developing our services in ways that best suit the needs of our patients.  This includes asking certain groups of staff to work more flexibly so that we can offer services to patients in the evenings and at weekends.  We regard this flexibility as essential if we are to continue to provide first class patient care in the future.  As a result, any offer of employment to a consultant post will be subject to you agreeing to work a new more flexible pattern of working in the future if required and in accordance with the provisions of the new Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust consultant contract.

Main place of employment:

This post will include working at both Guy’s and St Thomas’ sites as well as the new Synnovis Blackfriars Hub Laboratory (located near Southwark tube station).

Main duties of the job

The post holder will be accountable to the Clinical Lead in Cellular Pathology.

Specialist Interest

The Department operates a system of specialist reporting, each consultant having one or more special interests, which facilitates dealing with difficult cases and enhances patient care in accordance with Calman-Hine recommendations.

The specialist interests of this post are lung pathology and haematopathology (including a component of cytology reporting directly related to both specialities). Lung pathology will form the main workload (4.5-5 PAs) with haematopathology comprising the minor component (3.5-4 PAs).

Please refer to full job description for more details

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Lung pathology:

The successful candidate will be joining an existing team of 4 substantive lung consultants and 2 locums. The current lung consultants also have other speciality interests.

Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust is a specialised thoracic tertiary referral centre and receives referrals from the South East London network and wider, including Canterbury and Reading. The histopathology service is currently provided by a team of 3 consultants. There are 6 thoracic surgeons based at Guy’s Hospital, making it one of the largest centres in the UK, covering 17 referring hospitals and 14 MDMs. There were over 1400 operative resections in 2024 and frozen sections are relatively frequent. There is an expanding navigational bronchoscopy service of approximately 30 cases per month with plans to expand to 500 per year by the end of 2025. We receive a wide variety of surgical specimens from biopsies to lobectomies and pneumonectomies and well as thymectomies and decortications. There is one MDM a week (Friday 8 am).

We routinely do molecular analysis on our tumours which we integrate into our reports. We provide thoracic tissue for a bank which provides material for research and is of great value to the Academic Health Science Centre and the Biomedical Research Centre. All the clinicians are keen on research and running trials so there is ample opportunity for participation in this.

We are committed to teaching postgraduate students as well as being involved in the university teaching of undergraduate students.

Haematopathology:

The successful candidate will join an established team of four substantive haematopathology consultants, each of whom also holds additional specialist interests.

The haematopathology service at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust provides comprehensive diagnostic services for the local population, including haematopathology reporting for Greenwich and Lewisham NHS Foundation Trust. The service also functions as a tertiary referral centre for myeloproliferative neoplasms, systemic mastocytosis, and cutaneous T-cell lymphomas. Non-cutaneous tissue reporting is carried out by the haematopathologists, while dermatopathologists report on cutaneous samples.

In addition to histopathology, there will be a component of reporting of cytology specimens directly related to haematopathology, including fine needle aspirates and EBUS-TBNA samples. The post will involve integration of molecular and cytogenetic investigations, as well as complete integration with respect to bone marrow reporting. There may also be future opportunities to participate in the flow cytometry reporting rota.

The department receives approximately 2,000 haematopathology cases annually, with over 50% comprising bone marrow trephine biopsies. Four multidisciplinary meetings (MDMs) are held each week, including a joint myeloid MDM with King’s College Hospital. GSTT also hosts the supra-regional MDM for cutaneous lymphomas, in collaboration with the renowned St John’s Cutaneous Lymphoma Service.

We hold twice-weekly haematopathology consensus meetings and are actively involved in the training of both histopathology and haematology trainees. The team maintains a strong record of participation in national and international conferences and haematopathology workshops.