Spotlight: Rising stars in cytology

Daniel Kurtycz, MD Daniel Kurtycz, MD Kaitlin Sundling, MD, PhD, is certainly one of the rising stars in cytopathology. She brings strong science and fresh perspectives to our field. After earning a bachelor's degree in biochemistry and mathematics in 2005 from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, she went on to obtain a PhD in biophysics in 2012 and an MD in 2013 as part of a combined program. During that interval, she underwent a National Institutes of Health biotechnology training program in 2011. She performed her residency in anatomic and clinical pathology at the University of Wisconsin in 2017 and developed an affinity for cytopathology. During her residency, Dr. Sundling joined the Cytopathology Committee of the College of American Pathologists (CAP) as a junior member and came to the attention of many of the luminaries of our discipline. Her skill and contributions led the committee to take the unusual step of appointing her as a permanent member as soon as she completed her residency. She developed interests in quantitative cytology, digital image analysis, and predictive biomarkers, and has published articles on a number of subjects, including ancillary studies in effusion cytology and circulating tumor cells. Dr. Sundling has had many bylines in the CAP newsletter, CAP Today, on subjects ranging from social media to molecular cytopathology. Her recent projects include analyses of convolutional neural networks for the screening of urinary cytology samples and creating personalized mathematical models of gene expression in thyroid carcinoma. In 2018, Dr. Sundling was selected for a cytopathology fellowship at the Harvard Medical School's Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, under the direction of Edmund Cibas, MD. She won the $50,000 Shark Tank competition at the 66th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Society of Cytopathology (ASC), held in Washington, DC, from November 10 to 13, 2018, at which junior cytopathologists attempt to convince a panel of experts that their field of research is worthy of support. Her subject was “Development of a Deep Learning Image Analysis System for Improved Cytology Screening.” After her fellowship, Dr. Sundling joined the faculty of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Wisconsin and performs clinical cytology at both the University Hospital and the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene. In addition, she took over the university's cytotechnology program and has been doing a masterful job of recruiting and training a new crop of students into the field. She has achieved much in a short time, and we expect more. That she is a rising star is certain, and she is well on her way to being among the leadership of the next generation of our profession. I love the challenge of making a diagnosis using small, minimally invasive samples to give the maximum amount of information to help our clinicians and, ultimately, our patients. I also greatly appreciate the beauty of everyday microscopic findings in cytology, with a special appreciation for findings that are visually striking yet benign (pleomorphic adenomas, I'm looking at you!). Given the current impacts of coronavirus, the future at times can seem uncertain. Some good things that may come out of this situation may be increased utilization of remote technologies to bring expertise where it is needed most, including telepathology and digital pathology. I hope that we will continue to see integration of new technologies to improve our daily practice, including artificial intelligence/computer-aided diagnosis and molecular testing. The role of cytotechnologists will continue to evolve, and I foresee our cytotechnologist colleagues continuing to work hand in hand with pathologists as cytotechnologists develop new expertise and expanded areas of practice. You don't have to do everything yourself. In residency, many of us become quite self-reliant as both a necessity and because we want to learn how to be independent. However, as junior faculty, it can be very difficult (or impossible) to make progress if you try to do everything yourself. Moving from a direct, hands-on approach to research toward providing mentorship and direction to trainees is an aspirational goal for me. Twitter has been such a joy for me and has allowed me to be a part of a larger pathology community beyond my institution. Twitter has allowed me to connect with other pathologists, stay in touch between meetings, and share educational content. Social media is also a great way to spread the word about your research and publications, and it is great to see Cancer Cytopathology and many of our other top cytopathology publications joining in the conversation online. My work explores the creation of image analysis algorithms that have the potential to improve diagnosis in cytopathology. I hope to develop algorithms that are safe, effective, and address the areas of greatest clinical need from the perspective of clinical questions we face every day. One day, perhaps these algorithms will become as ubiquitous as the automated cervical Pap test algorithms currently in use by cytotechnologists.