State of the Society

Dear current and future ASC members, Welcome to the inaugural issue of American Society of Cytopathology’s journal, JASC! The society is proud to launch this effort and believes that the journal will become a valuable membership benefit that will be educative, and foster research and advocacy for cytopathology. We are in great handsdan awesome editorial team, a respected publisherdand contributions from all of us will ensure that this will be a successful ASC endeavor. I would like to take this opportunity to review where the ASC has been, where we are today, and where we are going. Let me begin, however, with some background on the current state of the nation’s health care as it pertains to members of our profession. The basic challenges in the rapidly evolving health care arena are not unique to pathology or cytopathologynamely, a relatively new and evolving health care system, workforce shortages, and economic pressures. With the implementation of the Affordable Healthcare Act, there will be changes in consumer demographics and new delivery systems. These changes, along with an increased emphasis on health Ritu Nayar, MD