I think one factor that isn't quite defined in the discussion is the nature of previewing time at each individual institution.
At the U and at the county hospital (two of four places our program spans), it's a two-day cycle. Day 1 = Gross, Day 2 = biopsies coming out in the morning, larges coming out in the afternoon.
At the U, previewing if any basically entails scanning L3 of the biopsies quickly while putting the paperwork together while triaging which might potentially need special stains/IPs. Previewing larges usually consists of picking out the bluest slide or the key margins listed in the summary of sections before it's off to the multi-headed scope.
At the county, all the slides for the day would end up in your mailbox. But because it was lower volume and relatively less complex cases (e.g. no teeny transbronchial biopsies for evaluation of rejection), it made sense that we were required to preview and enter final diagnoses even if it was our 2nd month as a surg path resident.
I'm heading for high-volume private-practice surg path next month as a resident, so we'll see how things go there. I know residents dictate the finals there.
Additionally, not all of G1/G2 is going to be surg path. I would say after 4 - 5 months of double-scoping on a two-day surg path cycle, I felt more equipped to formulate Final Diagnosis lines. Slow, but like cjw0918, I was also starting from zero. I couldn't be counted on to spot a plasma cell at 10x. That came with double-scoping. We can't all be like yaah
Formulating final diagnoses are also somewhat dependent on how comfortable attendings are with your skillz. At the beginning of my 4th month of surg path, the SP director at the county hospital told me that I should work towards previewing and entering diagnoses into the computer on my own, and he proved to always be available if I had a difficult case and didn't know where to start. It helps too that both hospitals I've been at have computer shortcuts in CoPath and Cerner to insert CAP protocols into the final report.
On the other hand, there are attendings who won't trust you, whether a G1 or a fellow, to enter anything into the computer. C'est la vie.
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The original poster asked about grossing.
Yesterday I did a prostate (entirely submitted), a simple and a radical mastectomy, a coupla explanted lungs, a prophylactic TAH/BSO and a colon. Average, for a day that had two hours of conferences.