It's been a while, but for a couple of years early in residency we had a 2 day rotation. My recollection is this:
1) Grossed on day 1, previewed early on day 2 for as long as possible then signed out on day 2. Typically grossed again the next day, as I recall. We were somewhat able to preview on day 2 as most of the slides were out by about 6 AM, and most of the attendings were willing to wait several hours before starting sign-out mid to late morning or so, or were willing to take half the slides while we previewed the other half, then swap, and eventually look them all over together. It was functional but not ideal.
2) Usually had 2 residents on surgical pathology, and 1 regular PA who was exceptionally good. When possible, residents would handle cancer cases or unusual cases, but "common" cancer cases the PA would do or if it was busy/resident was slow the PA would handle them. The PA was talented enough to handle the gross room entirely on her own, and was the BEST grossing resource I've ever had.
3) Mostly answered above. Occasionally there would only be 1 resident on surg path; I don't remember having 3, but we may have. At one point we went to a 3 day rotation "off-day" (not grossing, not signing out -- day 3) available to handle autopsies (we got so few autopsies we had no dedicated autopsy rotation) and post-view cases after having signed them out since we only had limited preview time.
4) I can't recall -- at the time I thought I'd never forget, of course, and now I don't see any numbers posted on their websites. Based on an old case image with a case number, about 25,000 at the main hospital, so maybe 30,000 for the grossing room in question.
5) Weekends would be 1 person coming in to gross on Saturday, any specimens that came in overnight -- mainly late cases from the main hospital, or regular stuff from nearby outlying hospitals. This varied from being half an hour of work to a full 8 hr day, but usually one could finish in time for lunch and have cassettes in so the processor could start. One staff member was also usually in, signing out cases from Friday. We weren't expected to stay or do anything else except possibly start the processor, once grossing was done. The person coming in on Saturday rotated, if I recall, usually evenly among the 2 residents and 1 PA?
6) Answered above for the weekend; my longest Saturday was probably 6 or 7 PM (~12 hrs), maybe once in my first year, and I was never a "fast" grosser. Regular days were typically full grossing days, and the PA would pick up to make sure everything important was in for processing by the end of the day. I was typically out of the gross room by 4:30 or so, with probably < 5 days in 2 years of rotations where I stayed after 6 to work on something.
7) I don't remember the drop/pick-up times for specimens. Around 3 or so PM might have been the last pick-up from in-house surgery (for things to be grossed that day)? The outside hospitals, I don't recall at all.
Edited to add: Frozen sections were performed and read in the gross room. We only had 2 grossing stations. Usually the resident already grossing would set up the frozen (examine, freeze, cut, stain) while the PA continued to do the regular grossing.
