Summer Semester Update

We are a quarter of the way through our program as of today! I cannot believe it! Time flies when you’re having fun….or studying a lot. 

This week I had my last gross room rotation of the semester.  It wasn’t as busy so there weren't a lot of specimens, but I did gross my first leg so that was exciting!  Well it was an exciting experience for me, but unfortunately not for the patient.  They experienced a traumatic injury which lead to a below the knee amputation of their leg.  For these specimens, we evaluate the lesion and the soft tissue/bone underlying the lesion, submit the skin/soft tissue and bony margins, and evaluate the vasculature and look for calcifications or narrowing of the vessels.  They can be messy specimens so I had to wear a face shield and lab coat because the blood can shoot out.  This was also my first time using a Stryker saw to cut the bone which I was nervous about, but the next time I think I will be more comfortable.  Gross room is always a learning experience but it is exciting when you get to gross a new specimen.

We still have class on Monday but we have Tuesday off for the 4^th of July!  Since we can't go out of town for the holiday, we are renting a pontoon boat and enjoying some time on Cheat Lake after class on Monday! I haven’t been blogging as much this summer because there is not a whole lot going on except for classes and I already explained how our classes are for the summer so I would really just be repeating myself!  A couple of things I haven’t mentioned yet about our classes this semester are the microscopic portfolios and our presentations.  Before each exam, we have to go the microscope room and take pictures of normal histology of the organ systems we are going over for that unit.  So for example, this test we have coming up is on the male/female reproductive tract, bladder, head and neck, and peripheral nerve pathology so we will take pictures of the structures on a list we are given and we turn them into Justin for a grade.  I actually like these assignments because it makes us better at recognizing histological structures, and it is easier to know what is going on in conferences.  We also have these assignments because for advanced microanatomy in the fall we have to know it all anyways!

As far as the presentations go,  we were given a schedule at the beginning of the semester with pre-assigned topics and dates.  They take place on the same days of the exams so we stay afterwards to listen to 2-4 presentations.  My topic is endocrine tumors of the thyroid and I go next Monday so getting that in order is on my To-Do list this weekend!

                             Parotid Gland Histology

webpathology.com

Relay for Life

I know this is my second post today, but this deserves its own post! My classmates and I are participating in Relay for Life on Friday for the American Cancer Society.  Relay for Life is an all-night walk-a-thon where teams sign up and fundraise prior to the event and the fundraising continues there.  The different teams set up tents and stations and have unique fundraising events that take place throughout the night. One person from each team is supposed to walk the whole time to represent that cancer never sleeps and the patients do not stop because they are tired! During the event there is a Luminaria lighting to symbolize the darkness of fear that one feels when they are diagnosed and when lit it is to show those who are affected by cancer they are not alone and there is hope!  The bags are in honor of those we have lost or to celebrate survivors.  The money raised by the American Cancer Society goes to “fund life-saving cancer research, patient support services, prevention and education information, and detection and treatment programs.”

The event is Friday evening from 7pm-7am.  So even after a long week of studying we are willing to stay up for a good cause.  Everyone has had cancer touch their lives in some shape or form and we will encounter it daily with our career.  Our team is the “WVU Pathletes” and if you would like to donate, I will put a link to my fundraising page here!  Any bit helps!!  If would like to donate in honor of someone, tell me in the comments and I will make them a Luminaria bag that will be lit in remembrance at the event!

Summer Rotations

This summer we get to go to the gross room three times over the course of the semester. During my first rotation, I had a few technical difficulties with my log on not working for our dictation system but I still grossed the most “complex” case I have done so far so I still got a lot out of this rotation. 

In case anyone is wondering how the gross room works, a patient presents in the clinic with symptoms and if the doctor thinks they symptoms are severe enough, a surgery will be scheduled if applicable.  The specimen removed during surgery gets sent to surgical pathology or the gross room.  It gets entered into the system and assigned a specimen number and it gets passed onto the Pathologists’ Assistant for gross examination.  We examine the specimen, and here at Ruby, we speak into a microphone, and there is a computer program that types what we say into a word document.  (This is the program I was having issues logging onto so I typed my dictation manually) While doing our gross examination, we look for areas of concern and cut thin sections to be submitted to histology where it gets processed and cut and placed on a microscope slide and sent to the pathologists for microscopic examination along with the report from the PA.

The case I grossed was a right thyroid lobe for follicular carcinoma which is a malignant process.  The bad thing about follicular carcinoma is that it looks grossly similar to follicular adenoma which is a benign process.  This means we need to sample these specimens heavily so the Pathologists has the information necessary to make the call whether it really is cancer or if it is benign (which would be good for the patient).  This particular specimen had a lesion that was well-circumscribed with a fibrous capsule.  This means the borders of the lesion were visible with a rim of tissue.  When this happens, we have to submit the entire capsule of the lesion….this took 36 cassettes to accomplish!  They are wanting to see if the lesion extends beyond the capsule because this would indicate a malignant process.  Just one of the many reasons our job is important!

This summer we also have rotations in tissue bank, autopsy, and we get to see a kidney biopsy procedure for electron microscopy.  I had my autopsy rotation last week.  It was definitely a learning experience. The purpose of this rotation is just so everyone gets a chance to see an autopsy so we are prepared for our class in the fall.  It is different from the gross room because we are seeing the whole body at one time and we get to see how different disease processes affect each system and not just the piece of tissue on our grossing station. 

This week I went on my tissue bank rotation.  Unfortunately, there weren’t any cases for us to observe, but we got a really good explanation of what tissue bank is and what happens.  Basically, different researchers at the hospital tell the tissue bank staff what kind of samples they are looking for to conduct their research.  The tissue bank staff looks at the surgery schedules daily to see if there are surgeries coming up that would yield that kind of sample, and if there are, they have to receive the consent of the patient to collect a sample after the gross room is done with it.  They only get a sample if the Pathologist Assistant or the Pathologist thinks there is enough extra that they would not need for patient care.  Once they collect the sample they freeze it for the different research projects.  

Classes are about the same with a lot of studying and reading but everything is going well!!