Picture a young resident. The consultants have all left for the day, the grossing trays are cleared, and the corridors of the hospital are quiet. The resident still there, sitting at the microscope, peering into the tiny details that most eyes would never notice learning their way into this speciality. Hours slip by in silence. The chair beneath them is hard, the posture awkward, the stillness absolute. Night after night, year after year, this becomes the rhythm of training, a body bent into positions it was never meant to hold, all in service of the slides.

I know this scene well. I lived it. At the time, I never thought about the chair, or the tilt of the microscope, or the way my shoulders rounded forward. All that mattered was getting the diagnosis right. The body was incidental. Discomfort was invisible.

Until it wasn’t.

At first it was a dull ache in the neck, a stiffness in the shoulders after long days. I brushed it off as fatigue, part of the job. But the aches grew sharper, the fatigue heavier, until even turning my head or carrying my bag became painful. I told myself this was normal, that all pathologists endured it. After all, our work demands focus and long hours, we aren’t trained to think about comfort, only about accuracy.

It took me years to understand the truth: it wasn’t just the microscope causing this pain. It was posture. It was ergonomics or rather, the absence of it in our work culture.

Most professions today prioritize ergonomics. Designers have sit-stand desks. IT professionals have ergonomic keyboards and wrist supports. Corporate executives lean back in chairs engineered to protect their spines. Yet in medicine, the very field dedicated to health, we neglect our own. We are taught to treat the sick, but never taught how to stay healthy ourselves.

Pathology is especially punishing. When we think of the risks associated with a career in pathology, we often focus on biological hazards or lab safety. What we don’t talk about enough is the physical toll our work can take on our bodies, especially when it comes to musculoskeletal health. Hours of leaning forward, head bent, body frozen in stillness. The damage doesn’t show up in a day, or even a year. But slowly, inevitably, that stillness etches pain into the body in form of chronic neck strain, aching shoulders, stiff backs, sometimes injuries that can end careers prematurely.

Research has confirmed what many of us endure silently. A survey revealed that more than 70% of pathologists suffer from musculoskeletal pain due to their work. Another study found higher rates of neck and back pain amongst Cytopathologists, severe enough to interfere with daily life. These aren’t just numbers. They are lived experiences, mine included.

A turning point came when my pain stopped fading with rest. It was constant. I realized I couldn’t go on like this for another 20 or 30 years especially if I wanted to do something I loved & was passionate about for a long time to come. Slowly, I started making changes, raising my chair so my eyes met the eyepiece without bending, adjusting the tilt of the microscope instead of my neck, finding a chair that supported my back, carrying my own lumbar pillow wherever possible and forcing myself to take short breaks to stretch.

The relief was immediate, but the impact went deeper than that. I found I could focus better. I wasn’t distracted by discomfort. Ergonomics didn’t just make me feel better, it made me a doctor who was present & was not constantly in turmoil of pain.

And that’s the heart of it: ergonomics is not about luxury. It is sustainability. It allows us to keep practicing the work we love, not just for a few years, but for a lifetime. It protects our bodies, preserves our clarity, and safeguards the quality of care we deliver. Because when we are well, our patients benefit too.

I sometimes wonder why this conversation is still absent in our training. Why are we not taught, from the beginning, how to position ourselves at the microscope, how to adjust our workstations, how to protect the very body that allows us to practice this science and art? Why is caring for ourselves still seen as secondary?

It is time we change this narrative. We cannot continue to normalize suffering in silence. We must talk about ergonomics in pathology departments, advocate for better-designed workstations, and most importantly, remind each other that caring for ourselves is not weakness, it is wisdom.

I wish I had understood this earlier. I wish someone had told me that the long evenings at the microscope didn’t have to come at the cost of my body. But I share my story now, in the hope that others won’t have to learn the hard way.

Better ergonomics makes us better pathologists. And better pathologists make better diagnosis.