Yolanda C. Oertel, MD

Clinical Expertise

Yolanda C. Oertel, MD, is the director of the Fine Needle Aspiration Service in the Department of Pathology at Washington Hospital Center. She is an interventional pathologist with more than 30 years of experience performing fine needle aspirations. Dr. Oertel joined Washington Hospital Center in 1998, where she has performed more than 10,000 fine needle aspirations, most of them from thyroid lesions. She is board certified in anatomic pathology and cytopathology.

Practice Focus

• Fine needle aspiration of thyroid gland and palpable masses

• BS from Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, Peru
• MD from Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia Medical School, Lima, Peru

• Pathology, George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences

• International post-doctoral fellow, sponsored by National Institutes of Health, at the AFIP in Washington, D.C.

• Certified in anatomic pathology and cytopathology, American Board of Pathology

• Member, American Society for Clinical Pathology
• Member, College of American Pathologists
• Member, International Academy of Pathology
• Member, Arthur Purdy Stout Society of Surgical Pathologists
• Member, American Society of Cytopathology
• Member, American Thyroid Association
• Member, Papanicolaou Society of Cytopathology
• Member, Latin American Pathology Foundation Honorary Member, Pathology and Cytology Societies in South America
• Meritorious service award, AFIP
• Commander's Medal, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center
• Distinguished alumna award, Cayetano Heredia Medical School
• Awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa by her alma mater, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia
• Honored with "Grado de Comendador de la Orden Cayetano Heredia"
• Appointed by the American Board of Pathology to the Test Committee for Cytopathology from 1988 to 1994
• Has been a guest speaker at cytology conferences and workshops in North, Central and South America, as well as in Europe, India and Hong-Kong

• Authored or co-authored over 70 articles in pathology journals
• Authored over 30 book chapters in pathology textbooks
• Has written a book entitled Fine Needle Aspiration of the Breast
• Was a staff pathologist at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP)
• Served as pathologist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center 
• Joined the Department of Pathology at George Washington University Medical Center as an assistant professor in 1975
• Professor in Pathology at George Washington University Medical Center in 1984
• Professor Emerita of Pathology at George Washington University School of Medicine in 1998
• She is an adjunct professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at MCP, Hahnemann University, School of Medicine