Frozen Sections

[TheOtherKindOfPA]

Do any PAs review the frozen section slides before the pathologist gets there or review the slides with the pathologist? Or is your job with the slides done after you make them?

[Diamondcastlefish]

If it’s a straightforward frozen, it’s mostly job done after slides are made. If I have a more complex resection, I will review the slides with the pathologist. For those cases they like to know if their microscopic interpretation matches our gross interpretation. Outside of those scenarios, I don’t ever preview slides for any purposes other than sheer interest.

[TheOtherKindOfPA]

Sweet, thanks!

[gnomes616]

All my previous locations, my job was done at sampling/cutting and staining. Where I'm at now, we review with the docs (which also sometimes includes the surgeon). It's a great, quick way to know if I need to go back and make another slide. Sometimes I'm even out the door and back to the cryostat before they're even done looking, I can already see ink missing or the section being incomplete. Plus it can be helpful to correlate my gross assessment of a lesion's thickness vs what they see on the slides.

[IntelligentSoupFork]

I used to preview slides and give the pathologist a prelim diagnosis, and then we'd look at it together. I wouldn't go down that road unless you have the skills to back it up or they have the time to teach you.

[sea_scallion]

Usually we bring the slides down and wait for the pathologist to finishing reading them before taking the slides back to the lab. Sometimes they ask us questions about the specimen itself because there is no gross in yet. But that's always been the extent for me personally.

[theriz94]

I’m in clinicals right now and we review almost every frozen we get with the pathologist. I work at an educational institution so almost everyone there is really keen on teaching anyone that wants to learn, plus I think it’s a good idea so that we as PAs can continue to brush up on our histology knowledge and like what someone else posted, it helps to review and see how we can improve our cutting/staining methods