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- 2019 CAP Pathology Advancement Award
The CAP established the CAP Pathology Advancement Award in 2013 to recognize a person or team who demonstrates components of foresight, resolve, and untiring commitment to both evolutionary and revolutionary undertakings that advance the positioning of the pathologist in the house of medicine and the delivery of safer patient care. It recognizes efforts that are neither easy nor obvious, and the recipient will often be a change agent.
Philip R. Foulis, MD, MPH, FCAP
The College of American Pathologists presents Philip R. Foulis, MD, MPH, FCAP, with the 2019 CAP Pathology Advancement Award in recognition of his dedication to improve communication and use of standardized, structured cancer reports for all users, including pathologists, oncologists, surgeons, cancer registrars, and public health entities.
One of the most committed Pathology Electronic Reporting (PERT) Committee members, as well as its former vice chair, Dr. Foulis has a user-centric philosophy. He said, “We have to approach the problem from the pathologist-user perspective—that is the only way that we will solve this in a meaningful way that can be put into practice.”
When Dr. Foulis first joined the PERT and Cancer committees, he was on a mission to make the CAP Cancer Protocols and electronic Cancer Checklists (eCC) easier to use and more accessible to pathologists. He worked to achieve this through direct interaction with the committee members and hands-on testing of the product, emphasizing standardization and outreach to clinical colleagues as the primary consumer of pathology cancer reports. Through his work with these committees, Dr. Foulis has been a driving force, enabling the CAP to enact numerous improvements in the protocols and eCCs. He also submitted referred papers, abstracts, and presentations on the protocols and eCCs at national meetings and has presented and promoted the benefits of standardized, structured cancer reports at these conferences.
As the primary member liaison between the Cancer and PERT committees, Dr. Foulis helped build a strong bridge between the two groups to create a lasting partnership in producing these high-quality cancer reporting products. He also was a member of the CAP Cancer Protocol Oversight Project team, which oversees issues broader than the scope of the PERT and Cancer committees individually.
A great believer in using cancer report data to do the most good, both for the patient and for public health, Dr. Foulis has been dedicated to improving communication with all downstream users of the cancer pathology report. To this end, a few years ago, he founded the “Ask the Pathologist” forum, sponsored and staffed by the CAP and hosted on the CAnswer forum of the American College of Surgeons–Commission on Cancer’s website.
In addition to his work with the PERT and Cancer committees, Dr. Foulis has been a CAP Laboratory Accreditation Program inspector and regional commissioner, volunteering his time and expertise to the CAP and to improving laboratory quality.
Dr. Foulis is chief of pathology informatics in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital and a professor at the Department of Pathology and Cell Biology at University of South Florida, both located in Tampa.