Current Residents

Thomas Auen, DO

Welcome from the Pathology Chief Resident

Greetings! As the chief resident for this academic year, I am excited to introduce you to our program here at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Our program offers opportunities among all aspects of anatomic and clinical pathology education and practice. As the major academic and referral medical center for the state of Nebraska, we average over 60,000 surgical specimens per year from all organ systems. The practice of surgical pathology involves grossing, intraoperative diagnoses (in-house and via digital pathology at affiliated medical facilities), and subspecialty sign-out among a department rich in trained pathologists. For those interested in additional pursuits following residency, our program offers multiple fellowships, which include transfusion medicine, surgical pathology, GI/transplant pathology, molecular pathology, microbiology and hematopathology.

We are a major center for solid organ and bone marrow transplants, which benefits our learning from regularly performed donor organ assessments and post-transplant biopsies across different organ systems. Our hospital autopsy service is active with an average of over 100 medical autopsies per year. We also work closely with our local forensic pathology group, which hosts residents rotating for forensic training.

In addition, we hold ties to various research studies across the hospital system and work closely with the procurement of tissues for such work. We host one of the largest lymphoma study groups in the country and participate in the diagnosis of a robust volume of hematolymphoid malignancies. Recently, the department has significantly invested itself in digital pathology/informatics, and the residents are involved in diagnoses, educational presentations, and tumor board preparation and presentation via digitally scanned slides. I also highly encourage residents to tackle projects of interest, and the department has strong support for conference attendance and advocating research.