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Dear Reader,

After living through a very fruitful and active period with the Residents and Young Pathologists Committee of the EFCS, with the tightly packed European Congresses in Budapest and Leipzig we disappeared for a couple of months to recuperate and accept change. Now I am excited to announce the rejuvenated Young EFCS with the combination of old friends in the chair and fresh new enthusiastic members!

I wish to grab the opportunity and say a warm goodbye and wish all the best to Pawel as our chair. We cannot be thankful enough for his efforts in bringing together the core of our group with Christina, Damjana, Despina, Cioly and myself. Under his guidance, we pulled off a Scientific Session at the ICC in Baltimore, that ignited the start of our mentorship project manifesting in a mind-opening roundtable session and a slide seminar in the Budapest congress, peaking with two young EFCS sessions in Leipzig. Under Pawel’s editorial of the EFCS Newsletter, we were committed to keep you up-to-date on the ripest events in cytology, we introduced the slovenian, british and hungarian national societies, and shared inspiring interviews of esteemed colleagues, case challenges and trivias on cytology.

As Pawel leaves, we will keep on nurturing our duties to inform you but in a new form. Instead of a quarterly newsletter our broadcasting will transform into the EFCS Newsreel, where you will be able to find all important and educative content in a continuous, more frequent but in a loosely packed manner.

I am privileged that Pawel and the EFCS Council Board thought of me to be the new chair, I will do my best. It is important to emphasize that we have grown but we have space to grow further!

If you are resident or early in your career, we wait for you in our community. We would be more than happy to share your cases, introduce your society, and your ideas on the Newsreel. You might find someone like minded among us to team up for a common scientific project in your field of interest in cytology or be eligible to join in on an EFCS scientific project. Or you might have a thought to add to the design of our follow-up mentorship survey, especially aimed to explore residents’ needs. Maybe you are strong on expressing yourself on social media, you could join our X (and soon LinkedIn) team led by Cioly to spread our word. Or you just wish to get to know new friends in cytology, this is the place and you are more than welcome!

Look for our content on X (@efcsyoung) too and if you wish to join our group, feel free to contact Christina (christina.kabjorngustafsson@gmail.com) or me (ikovacs85@gmail.com) directly!

Stay tuned for the upcoming report on the EFCS Tutorial in Wroclaw back this September, and the invitation from IAC president Fernando Schmitt to the 22nd International Cytology Congress in Florence, with a “Case of the Month”.

Until then, I wish you a very happy holiday season!

István Kovács

EFCS Residents and Young Pathologists Committee

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The 15th Annual EFCS Cytopathology Tutorial was held in Wroclaw (Poland) on 23-27 September. The event was chaired by Giovanni Negri and co-chaired by Arrigo Capitanio, and the local host was Pawel Gajdzis. The tutorial followed the classic format based on on-site microscopy workshops and lectures covering the most important topics in cytopathology. Virtual slides were made available to participants in advance and were discussed live at the end of each microscopy workshop using the eurocytology.cloud platform. Nine tutors from Poland, Croatia, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Finland and Germany were involved in the lectures, which covered eleven different topics: urine, breast, thyroid, respiratory tract, pancreas, serous effusion, salivary gland, lymphnodes and gynecological cytology. Lectures on ROSE, molecular and digital cytology and HPV were also included. Social activities included a welcome party and a get-together dinner in the beautiful city of Wroclaw.

The participants (cytotechnologists, residents and pathologists) came from 14 different countries (Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Croatia, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine), and were a highly interested, interactive and receptive international group. The lectures were recorded, and participants will receive a link to view the presentations again.

Feedback from participants was very positive, with most rating the quality of the event as excellent and extremely useful. Overall, 100% of participants would recommend a future tutorial to a colleague and found the virtual slides helpful. Most participants rated the quality of lectures and workshops as excellent.

In summary, it was again a very successful tutorial and a motivation to continue organizing these events in future years.

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This year’s EFCS Annual Cytology Tutorial was again a great success. The 14th annual EFCS tutorial of Cytopathology was held on June 16-18 in Toulouse (France). The event was chaired by Giovanni Negri and co-chaired by Arrigo Capitanio, and the local Host was Monique Courtade-Saidi. The Tutorial followed the classic format, based on on-site microscopy workshops and lectures covering the most important topics in Cytopathology. Eighty-six virtual slides were available in advance to the participants and were discussed live at the end of each microscopy workshop using the eurocytology.cloud platform. Nine tutors from Croatia, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland were involved in the lectures, including eleven different topics: Urine, breast, thyroid, respiratory tract, pancreatic, serous effusions, salivary gland, soft tissue and gynaecological cytology. Lectures on ROSE, molecular and digital cytology, and HPV have also been included. Social activity included a welcome party and get-together dinner in the background of the beautiful city of Toulouse. 

The Fifty-one participants (cytotechnologists, residents and pathologists) came from 22 different countries (Armenia, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, French Guiana, Germany, Italy, Luxemburg, Madagascar, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom) took part in the courses, resulting in a highly interested, interactive and receptive international group. All the lectures were recorded, and participants received a link to look again at the presentations. 

This year too it was decided to continue and increase the use of digital slides during the workshops, making them available about a month before the start of the Tutorial. The results obtained, i.e. more than 18,000 pages visited in approximately 2,500 visits to the various digital workshops, confirm the validity of this choice and encourage us to continue on this path.

The participants’ feedback has been very positive, with most participants judging the event quality as excellent and extremely useful. Overall, over 90% of the participants would recommend a future tutorial to a colleague and found the virtual slides helpful. Most participants judged the quality of all lectures and workshops as excellent.

Overall, it was a very successful Tutorial and a motivation to continue to organise these events in future years.

Giovanni Negri and Arrigo Capitanio

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