Pathology neglected, underpaid in 1990s, cancer inquiry told

The physician who launched a breast cancer testing program in St. John's more than a decade ago told an inquiry that pathology was treated dismally in that era. Dr. Mahmoud Khalifa was hired to work at the Health Sciences Centre in St. John's in 1995, and soon after became the site chief of pathology. Khalifa, though, told the Cameron inquiry Thursday that pathology did not have pride of place within the health-care system at the time. "My four years in St. John's were not what you would describe as years of plenty," Khalifa told Justice Margaret Cameron. "I don't recall having plenty of anything, except the number of cases." Khalifa said salaries paid to pathologists at the time were meagre by international standards, and that the Cairo-trained physician took home more on a fellowship in Washington, D.C., than he did as a... [read full story]