History of the VCU Department of Pathology

Brief history of the Pathology Department, 1867-present
By David Wilkinson, MD, PhD and Greg Miller, PhD

The Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine originated in 1838 as the Richmond Department of Medicine of the Medical Department of Hampden-Sydney College.  The school separated from Hampden-Sydney in 1854 and became an independent medical school, named Medical College of Virginia (MCV). In 1860, the Commonwealth of Virginia took ownership of MCV, which continued to operate as a free-standing medical school until its merger with another state institution, the Richmond Professional Institute, in 1968 to form the Virginia Commonwealth University.  The Department of Pathology is one of the oldest academic departments within the School of Medicine, having appointed Edwin S. Gaillard its first Professor of Pathology in 1867. Just one year later, Gaillard became dean of the Kentucky Medical School in Louisville. 

The longest serving chair was Frank Apperly, whose tenure lasted from 1932 until 1958.  Apperly was a native Australian who received his medical degree from Oxford and was a student of Sir William Osler.  The Apperly era was a critical period in the development of the department, as pathology emerged from its primary function in medical education to include a growing role in the diagnosis and management of human disease by laboratory methods, such as surgical pathology, cytopathology and the clinical laboratory.  A key recruit came to MCV in 1950, when Saul Kay joined the Department of Surgery as a surgical and cytopathologist.  Kay trained at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center under Arthur Purdy Stout, who was a surgeon devoted to surgical pathology.  At that time, it was commonplace for the surgical pathology laboratory to be housed in the Department of Surgery.  Kay was also an accomplished violinist, and a founding member of the Richmond Symphony.

It was not until 1960, under the leadership of then chair George Margolis, that all disciplines of pathology were joined together into a single department with five divisions including Surgical and Cytopathology with Dr. Kay as its chair, Autopsy Pathology, Neuropathology, Clinical Pathology, and Experimental Pathology. Dr. Margolis brought a strong emphasis on research to the department, and brought significant federal funding at a time when MCV was working to strengthen its research portfolio. 

Fairfield Goodale, who went on to become Dean at the Medical College of Georgia and Executive Dean at Wake Forest School of Medicine, was chair from 1963 until 1976.  Among others, in 1966 he recruited Jack Frable, who pioneered the clinical application of fine needle aspiration cytology in the US and trained dozens of fellows in cytopathology, including the former chair of the Division of Anatomic Pathology at VCU, Celeste Powers.  Frable and Powers have both received the George Papanicolaou Award from the American Society of Cytopathology and served as presidents of that organization.  Dr. Powers is a past-president of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology. During this period, Enrique Gerszten joined the faculty where he served for 59 years as an inspirational teacher and developed the unique Paleopathology Research program. Gus Johnston, Director of Hematopathology, Harry Dalton, Director of Microbiology, Robert Blanke, Director of Toxicology, and Hanns Gruemer, Director of Clinical Chemistry, joined the faculty in this period.

George Vennart, who had been the chair of the Division of Clinical Pathology, served as chair from 1978 until 1991.  During his tenure, the Division of Experimental Pathology was expanded to become the Division of Cellular and Molecular Pathogenesis with Al Sirica as chair.  Dr. Sirica had a remarkable three-decade history of uninterrupted NIH grant support and made pioneering discoveries about the pathogenesis of biliary cancer.  Dr. Vennart recruited Greg Miller, as Associate Director of Clinical Chemistry, who went on to become president of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry and president of the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute.

David Wilkinson, a past president of the Association of Pathology Chairs, became chair in 1993.  He reorganized the department into its current divisional structure, which includes divisions of Anatomic Pathology, Clinical Pathology, Cellular and Molecular Pathogenesis, and Molecular Diagnostics. Dr. Wilkinson initiated the Molecular Diagnostics service with Carleton Garrett as its first chair and Andrea Ferreira-Gonzalez, a past president of the Association for Molecular Pathology, as the second and current chair. The VCU Department of Pathology was one of the first in the US to achieve ACGME accreditation for its Molecular Genetic Pathology fellowship. Dr. Wilkinson recruited Richard McPherson as chair of the Division of Clinical Pathology, now retired; Susan Roseff as Director of Transfusion Medicine who is currently the chair of the Division of Clinical Pathology; and Kimberly Sanford who is the current Director of Transfusion Medicine and a past-president of the American Society for Clinical Pathology. Other faculty who joined Pathology in this period included Betts Forbes as Director of Microbiology, now retired, and Colleen Jackson-Cook as Director of Cytogenetics.

Charles Clevenger was chair from 2013 to 2022.  Susan Roseff is now serving as the interim chair.  The roster of current faculty is available at https://pathology.vcu.edu/about-us/faculty-directory/. Today’s Department of Pathology is well known for its teaching excellence and clinical effectiveness.  The department boasts the authors and co-authors of major textbooks in pathology and laboratory medicine.  Many of the current faculty hold and have held leadership and editorial positions in professional organizations such as the College of American Pathologists, the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology, the American Association of Blood Banks, the American Association for Clinical Chemistry, the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, the American Society for Microbiology, the American Society for Clinical Pathology, the American Society of Cytology, the American Society for Investigative Pathology, the Association for Molecular Pathology and the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute.

Perhaps the most famous pathologist with a connection to VCU is Baruj Benacerraf, who received his MD degree from MCV and went on to become Chair of Pathology at Harvard.  He received the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1980 for “discovery of the major histocompatibility complex genes which encode cell surface protein molecules important for the immune system's distinction between self and non-self."

January 26, 2024