I’m Dr. Marcelo Balancin, I’m a physician specialized in Anatomic Pathology, especially interested in oncopathology and pulmonary pathology. I care for people in a sensitive life scenario: when they need a biopsy to investigate a condition, a symptom, or to test for therapeutic targets.
Those who have undergone a biopsy may know that the biopsy, a piece of tissue or even an entire organ, will be analysed through a microscope by a surgical pathologist, as me. Daily, we have the opportunity to look at many slides. Each of them is a life we’re caring for, diagnosing from an ample spectrum of disease. At the end, a report will be generated, with a name and some parameters. Our efforts will not be measured to offer the most correct name and precise parameters. Besides diagnosing, we guide therapy. Frozen sections, margins evaluations, cancer staging and biomarkers assays may parametrize therapy. Her-2, PD-L1 and repair proteins are just three examples that have lifted medical practice in the last two decades. As a physician-scientist, I study tumoral microenvironment and focus on incorporating new technologies, as computational pathology, in medical practice to enhance compliance with patient safety. As an academic pathologist, I am committed to transmit the quest for knowledge and excellency pursuit to every trainee I have a chance to work with.
In sum, as pathologist, I stick to being a physician. And, as a physician, I’m caring for people, not simply slides. Each glass slide is a patient. Each patient is a story. Each story is a life, or many lives, we care.