Specimens (%) in private practice

[KeratinPearls]

In order, what is the % of cases you see in practice? I am assuming derm, GI and GU are top 3. How about Gyn, breast, head and neck, soft tissue and heme. I am asking so that I can anticipate what to see when I eventually go out to practice.

 

[deleted314957]

you should be well prepared to see all of the above, whether frequently or infrequently.

you should ascertain what you will almost not certainly see. for example, i see no medical renal bippsies, nerve biopsies, muscle biopsies and brain biopsies.every thing else is fair game

 

[KluverB]

All depends on the practice. I see all of those and then some. For example, I never saw much oral path in my residency, beyond your run-of-the-mill HEENT SCCs and papillomas, and now, I see several specimens per day, the kinds of specimens that only dentists provide.

 

[yaah]

Totally depends. Our group has close to 50% derm but I see 1% derm (and only if you include frozen sections, the occasional skin thing that gets lumped in with a hernia sac, etc). If you are at a larger hospital you will see more lung and complicated resections whereas if you are at a smaller hospital you will only rarely see lung, oral resections, etc. And it also depends whether outpatient business comes to you or not. Some groups get no GU or GI biopsies and others get tons.

 

[green mantis]

It depends on what kind of practice you end up joining. My hospital-based group only gets outpatient GI biopsies because we have a GI center at the hospital. There's almost no GU, gyn or derm biopsies, unless it's done in the OR. The large specimens of note are mainly colons, breasts, prostates & kidneys. One of our old hospitals had L&D, so we'd also get placentas.

I'm guessing you don't plan on working for a single specialty (GI, derm, GU, heme, etc) lab. You should know what you're getting when you join one of them.


----- Antony