The Department of Pathology, headed by Dr. Ina Shah, offers 32 postgraduate seats annually and serves as a cornerstone of diagnostic medicine at B. J. Medical College and Civil Hospital, Ahmedabad. Dr. Mahesh Patel, Associate Professor, also serves as a syndicate member of Gujarat University.

The department is committed to integrating teaching, research and clinical excellence to deliver high-quality, accessible and preventive healthcare — particularly to underserved populations — while training competent and compassionate medical professionals. Pathology underpins prevention, early detection and informed treatment of major public-health conditions, and the department’s diagnostic services support clinicians across the Civil Hospital campus.

The Pathology laboratory has been NABL accredited under ISO 15189 since 2010 — the first pathology department in a Government public health facility in India to achieve this — with the scope steadily expanding through successive re-assessments, the most recent completed in April 2025. Six departmental faculty are NABL assessors. A highly customised, paperless Laboratory Information System, integrated with the hospital’s HMIS, enables online reporting from wards and clinical areas across Civil Hospital; the system was awarded the SKOCH Order of Merit in 2015.

Notable milestones include being the first centre in Gujarat to start FNAC services for early cancer detection (1988), the first Ph.D. in pathology in Gujarat (2018), and the launch of the DM Onco-Pathology super-specialty course at GCRI (2019). During the COVID-19 pandemic, the department performed 31 morphological autopsies as part of a research study. It has hosted landmark academic events including AIICME 2020 (the 25th ICP-AIPNA international CME, with 763 registrations — the highest in AIPNA-ICP history), the inaugural state-level UG Pathology quiz “Inquizita” (2018) and Pathcon BJ 2025, Gujarat’s largest post-pandemic pathology conference.