I will be doing these just by myself after other people showed me one time in the 1st week of the residency training in our program, I feel scared ...need your input...
How soon do you get confidence to do frozen and gross independently
- Thread starter TJMAXX
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You get better with time man. I was "ok" at the end of my first year. I think I improve as time goes on. I think the main thing is not to cut your finger off or get nervous. The clock is ticking, but if you have problems, like the stupid block comes off the chuck just try again and trouble shoot. I've had so many stupid things slow my frozen's down, you just learn to deal with it and you will improve with time.
I had a real odd one the other day, a urologist sent a prostate margin for frozen and when we looked at the slide there was nothing but parathyroid. Markedly odd. Turned out that there was a hunk of parathyroid from the previous day still stuck to the hammer and it had come off in the current frozen section. Had never seen that before.
Anyway, I think the best thing is to stay calm and develop a mode of operation, I usually do the same routine for certain frozens.
Best luck!
I had a real odd one the other day, a urologist sent a prostate margin for frozen and when we looked at the slide there was nothing but parathyroid. Markedly odd. Turned out that there was a hunk of parathyroid from the previous day still stuck to the hammer and it had come off in the current frozen section. Had never seen that before.
Anyway, I think the best thing is to stay calm and develop a mode of operation, I usually do the same routine for certain frozens.
Best luck!
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The best thing you can do to build your confidence is take a fresh piece of tissue from the gross room (nothing diagnostic please! maybe some benign adenoid or muscle) and use it after hours to practice grossing, cutting, and staining quickly. If you develop some confidence in your cutting abilities, then you can focus on the grossing and thinking about the case.
You should be fine in grossing simple cases within the first few weeks..complicated cases (especially the neoplastic ones) need more time....by the end of the year you should be O.K. Repetition and type of cases you receive in your program is the clue..For example, I did a fellowship in a cancer center and I received highly complicated cases that I never received or encountered in my residency .. Your knowledge in pathology will also make you more confident in grossing with time.. For instance, when you know the things you have to cover in any report of diagnosis, you will become cautious to take sections representative for these things.
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