Support services for research--slide/block pulling

[univlad]

How are your residency programs in terms of providing support for research projects?

If you needed slides and/or blocks pulled for a research project, would you have to pull them yourself or is there staff to do that?


What about slides for tumor boards and/or other conferences--are the slides pulled for you or do you have pull them yourself?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[miko2005]

How are your residency programs in terms of providing support for research projects?

If you needed slides and/or blocks pulled for a research project, would you have to pull them yourself or is there staff to do that?


What about slides for tumor boards and/or other conferences--are the slides pulled for you or do you have pull them yourself?

No one has any comments about this??? I was really hoping someone would respond since I was wondering about same thing...

 

[pathdoc68]

At my program you pull all your own stuff, blocks, slides, reports. That's true for tumor boards and research projects.

 

[skoller]

At my program, a tech was recently hired to pull slides for us. Prior to that, everyone pulled his or her own slides, and consequently hundreds of slides went missing because no one bothered to refile them or leave a note telling where the slides went. I'm so glad we don't have to pull them ourselves anymore, although there are other examples of pure scutwork that I would love to see addressed here (e.g. having to make our own cassettes while grossing).

 

[Matte Kudesai]

We have an archiving service that pulls the slides. We also have a core facility that constructs TMA's and works out IHC protocols etc.
Its actually pretty helpful.

 

[ALMD2B]

How are your residency programs in terms of providing support for research projects?

we have support staff (an office with 4 lovely ladies) that provide this to residents, attendings, and research assistants. Advance notice is required (not last minute) for research projects.

 

[Gene_]

On the interview trail, I asked about support staff as a roundabout way of asking how much scut work residents do. I found that private hospitals had more PAs and more staff in general than the community hospitals did. Anyone experience different?

 

[Mrbojangles]

At my program, a tech was recently hired to pull slides for us. Prior to that, everyone pulled his or her own slides, and consequently hundreds of slides went missing because no one bothered to refile them or leave a note telling where the slides went. I'm so glad we don't have to pull them ourselves anymore, although there are other examples of pure scutwork that I would love to see addressed here (e.g. having to make our own cassettes while grossing).

I'd so much rather have someone making my cassettes for me than having someone pulling slides for me. Not to gloat or anything. Those 6 tower cassette printers are so slow. I geuss it's one of those things you don't think about before entering residency but it actually adds alot of time to grossing if you made cassettes by yourself.

 

[yaah]

We aren't allowed to pull slides here, because to be frank, people **** it up and don't leave the proper documentation about what they took and where they took it. So it is in the hands of the slide librarian who has some assistants. Getting slides for conferences and diagnosis usually isn't a problem, but sometimes it takes a while to get research blocks.

We also make some of our own cassettes, but only if we are grossing and we need more for a certain case than the tech provided us. She will also make us additionals but sometimes it is easier to just make them ourselves.

 

[univlad]

At my program, a tech was recently hired to pull slides for us. Prior to that, everyone pulled his or her own slides, and consequently hundreds of slides went missing because no one bothered to refile them or leave a note telling where the slides went. I'm so glad we don't have to pull them ourselves anymore, although there are other examples of pure scutwork that I would love to see addressed here (e.g. having to make our own cassettes while grossing).

Do you have a machine or do you have to write them by hand? We have a machine and a tech will make cassettes for each case, but invariably she never makes enough. I usually just write the remaining cassettes in marker since it's a hassel to leave my station to go to the machine. Does anyone else have a problem using the cassette labeling markers? Maybe we just use a cheap brand, but they rarely seem to work.

 

[QuietSylph]

Do you have a machine or do you have to write them by hand? We have a machine and a tech will make cassettes for each case, but invariably she never makes enough. I usually just write the remaining cassettes in marker since it's a hassel to leave my station to go to the machine. Does anyone else have a problem using the cassette labeling markers? Maybe we just use a cheap brand, but they rarely seem to work.

At the VA I use a pencil to make alterations on the cassette. How's that for cheap?

 

[beary]

I usually just write the remaining cassettes in marker since it's a hassel to leave my station to go to the machine. Does anyone else have a problem using the cassette labeling markers? Maybe we just use a cheap brand, but they rarely seem to work.

That happens to me too. Whenever I wrote on the cassettes by hand the writing would fade off, sometimes to the point of being illegible. So I always used the machine even though it is a hassle.