specimen number

[eyeball01]

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[Entgegen]

I found this thread a while back: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=187289

It's about 5 years old, but it's probably still accurate. Consensus seems to be you want >20,000 a year, and preferably not with cytology making up a significant portion of that.

 

[Gene_]

Do not be too concerned with the numbers. It is hard to translate specimen number into the number of cases you will actually be seeing.

How many programs have <20,000 specimens? I was at a small (12 resident) program last year and we did 45K surgicals and 7K cytology cases. I think that number was adequate, but less would have been welcomed too (more time to read).

 

[KeratinPearls]

Do not be too concerned with the numbers. It is hard to translate specimen number into the number of cases you will actually be seeing.

How many programs have <20,000 specimens? I was at a small (12 resident) program last year and we did 45K surgicals and 7K cytology cases. I think that number was adequate, but less would have been welcomed too (more time to read).

Just as long as you are seeing bread and butter cases in all subspecialties you should be fine. Programs that allow you to take full control of your cases with adequate preview time is your best bet. Programs where you are grossing and a majority of your cases are being taken from you so that they can be signed out...you might want to avoid.

 

[TMZ2007]

I was at a small (12 resident) program last year and we did 45K surgicals and 7K cytology cases.

That seems like a big mismatch between residents and case load. My place has 12-13 residents and 23k surgicals +/- and it seems busy enough. And those are 7k Non-GYN cytos, or total cytos? You must have way more attending staff than us.

 

[KCShaw]

I agree that numbers are numbers, and meaningless without context. Focus on programs which cover surgical services that send them at least a few of the most common regular excision specimens from at least the common specialties (GI, head & neck, thoracic, breast, GU..). Seeing a lot of derm, cyto, biopsies, etc. is all well and good, but not at the expense of never seeing a whipple specimen. But you don't have to get a whipple/prostate/colon/kidney/lung, etc., every single day to still get "adequate" exposure and experience.

 

[Sulfinator]

Agreed; you can't really just throw out a number above which is "good" and below which is "bad." There are way too many other factors to make this kind of reductionist analysis very meaningful.

 

[zao275]

Agreed; you can't really just throw out a number above which is "good" and below which is "bad." There are way too many other factors to make this kind of reductionist analysis very meaningful.

Disagreed! 29, 137 specimens per year is theoretically the perfect number. 😉

Seriously, though, I agree that you have to take it all in context. We had 20 residents, 5 PA's (sweet!), and 12-15 faculty for 35,000 surgicals. I got tons of preview time, dictated all of my cases starting year one, and had enough gross experience but not too much scut. It was ideal, and I felt very happy with the arrangement and with the AP training I received.