Most people hear the term pathologist and think of autopsies.
That's true but it's a relatively small percentage of the work that he does. Most of his time is spent at a microscope, looking at slides of material that comes out of the operating room and the ambulatory day care and making diagnoses of what he sees. He said the reason for this is because he can feel the prostate quite well through the wall of the rectum, whether it is enlarged, whether it's soft or hard, whether there are any nodules or anything suspicious for cancer. He stressed that most prostatic pathology is benign. It's only the minority that's actually malignant in nature.