Maude Abbott Lecture 2023

H & E

Saturday, March 11 – 4:30 – 5:50 PM

Great Hall A

Elizabeth Montgomery, MD

Clinical Professor
University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
Vice Chair of Faculty Development & Mentoring
Director of Surgical Pathology Fellowship Training Program
Co-Director, Pathology Reference Services

Course Description

Dr. Montgomery will consider how diagnostic pathology has evolved from the use of hematoxylin and eosin into the molecular era, with both augmentation and diminution of the quality of practice using specific examples from her diagnostic practice. She will conclude with a discussion of the artificial intelligence explosion and what it means for practice.

Learning Objectives

• To consider the power of the humble hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stain, the foundation of diagnostic surgical pathology.
• To discuss several examples of lesions that are readily diagnosed on H&E stains and others that are not.
• To comment on the molecular revolution and the artificial intelligence revolution in diagnostic pathology.

Biography

Elizabeth Anne Montgomery completed pathology residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in 1988 wearing the uniform of the United States Army. A rotation at DeWitt Army Community Hospital, Ft. Belvoir VA was followed by one in the Soft Tissue Branch of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), with the opportunity to learn from luminaries in soft tissue pathology. The guidance of Drs. Jeanne Meis, Sharon Weiss, and the late Dr. Franz Enzinger stimulated her love of histomorphology, resulting in first reports of new entities (atypical decubital fibroplasia/ischemic fasciitis, inflammatory myxohyaline tumor/myxoinflammatory fibroblastic sarcoma). Time with Dr. Leslie Sobin (AFIP) and Walter Reed gastroenterologists (David Peura and David Martin) piqued her interest in gastrointestinal (GI) pathology, with early publications on H. pylori (then termed Campylobacter pylori).

Dr. Montgomery left the Army (1992), moving to Georgetown University, where she learned “the ropes” from Drs. Norio Azumi, Ernest Lack, and Janice Lage followed by Johns Hopkins University (1999), where she remained for 21 years, working with such pioneers as the late John (Jack) Yardley, Ralph Hruban, Scott Kern, and Bert Vogelstein. Participation in the training of a new generation in gastrointestinal pathology (Michael Torbenson, Christine Iacobuzio-Donahue, Anirban Maitra, Jason Park, Chanjuan Shi, Christina Arnold, Dora Lam-Himlin, Lysandra Voltaggio, Aatur Singhi, Oliver McDonald, and Ta-Chiang Liu, with more coming) allowed her to refine morphologic pathology with studies of existing and novel entities such as various polyps, anastomosing hemangioma, autoimmune gastritis, medication-associated injuries, GI dysplasia, esophageal epidermoid metaplasia, and serrated epithelial change in colitis.

In July 2020, Dr. Montgomery joined the faculty at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, working with a new set of leaders in pathology, including Drs. Merce Jorda, Oleksandr Kryvenko, Andrew Rosenberg, Carmen Gomez, Jennifer Chapman, Monica Garcia, Oliver McDonald, Andre Pinto, and Catalina Amador.

Her delight in the beauty of the hematoxylin and eosin stain and all the information that it offers never diminishes.

Dr. Montgomery resides in Miami Beach. She has a daughter (Alexandra Blaes), two sons (Peter Blaes and Sean McEvoy), and five grandchildren (Maxwell Andes, Jesse and Toby Blaes, Catherine and Louise McEvoy).