What is a histology practical like?

Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine
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PS2summerdays

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My school isn't being very transparent about the histology practical exam. All they say is that you will have to "look through a microscope and know structure and function."

So, my question is, do I have to use the microscope to zoom in and find specific things? We have an online histology slide viewer so I mostly use that to study. I'm not very comfortable with a microscope, never have been, and it usually takes me a while to get things working properly.

What were histology practicals like for you? Did you just have to look through the microscope and know the images shown? Or did you have to physically maneuver around using the microscope's zooming, placement, and lighting functions?

I'm HOPING that since there are 140+ students in the class, we'll all have to just go around and look (the chance for slides getting displaced being way too high), but maybe that's just wishful thinking? Thanks all.
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At my school, touching the microscope was completely banned except for adjusting the eyepieces. The entire room was heavily decorated with distractions and our professor played music through the whole thing in a musical chairs sort of deal. Not joking.
 
QualityProcess said:
At my school, touching the microscope was completely banned except for adjusting the eyepieces. The entire room was heavily decorated with distractions and our professor played music through the whole thing in a musical chairs sort of deal. Not joking.
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...Seems like a cool professor. Music? Really? 😀 Do you think the ban on adjusting microscopes is a common thing? That's what it was like during undergrad for me too.
 
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Never had practicals for histo at my school, but I imagine they are close to anatomy ones. No touching, no adjustments needed, just a matter of looking at the slides and interpreting. It's probably just as if you had a computer exam with a question, and a picture to complement the question. I recommend histo time!
 
.hematoma. said:
Never had practicals for histo at my school, but I imagine they are close to anatomy ones. No touching, no adjustments needed, just a matter of looking at the slides and interpreting. It's probably just as if you had a computer exam with a question, and a picture to complement the question. I recommend histo time!
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Thanks! What is histo time? Google wasn't helpful. Is it some software?
 
Blue histo is great!

at our school the practical was basically just blue histo pictures cycling on the screen in the lecture hall while we all sat there and watched...sorry that you have to use a microscope!

There's a book called Big Picture histo that I liked as well, I think it's available for download off amazon
 
You can't adjust the microscope. Look there's only so many types of tissue they can show and it can only come from so many organs. Histo practical is easy and you will most likely fail a few answers because the samples are utter garbage. C'est la vie.
 
You look through the eyepieces and the pointer will be, well, point something. The question will be something like "What cell is this?". If you touch the scope and move the slide around, you'll fail the exam. And yes, we have ways of figuring out who does this.

But your school still uses scopes???

nebuchadnezzarII said:
My school isn't being very transparent about the histology practical exam. All they say is that you will have to "look through a microscope and know structure and function."

So, my question is, do I have to use the microscope to zoom in and find specific things? We have an online histology slide viewer so I mostly use that to study. I'm not very comfortable with a microscope, never have been, and it usually takes me a while to get things working properly.

What were histology practicals like for you? Did you just have to look through the microscope and know the images shown? Or did you have to physically maneuver around using the microscope's zooming, placement, and lighting functions?

I'm HOPING that since there are 140+ students in the class, we'll all have to just go around and look (the chance for slides getting displaced being way too high), but maybe that's just wishful thinking? Thanks all.
Click to expand...
 
Goro said:
You look through the eyepieces and the pointer will be, well, point something. The question will be something like "What cell is this?". If you touch the scope and move the slide around, you'll fail the exam. And yes, we have ways of figuring out who does this.

But your school still uses scopes???
Click to expand...

Haha! We have a online software to view the slides in. But our histology professor insists that you can't really learn as well without looking through a real microscope....So, we have optional histology labs. But examples of all the slides are on an online program. The practical exam is also a "wet lab" where well over a hundred students will be rotating around and looking at the scopes...

And thanks very much. My nerves are at ease right now. It would be a nightmare on the test if you zoomed in incorrectly, used the wrong lens, or just messed up the slide! Gah, I can't even imagine.
 
How 20th Century!!!!


nebuchadnezzarII said:
Haha! We have a online software to view the slides in. But our histology professor insists that you can't really learn as well without looking through a real microscope....So, we have optional histology labs. But examples of all the slides are on an online program. The practical exam is also a "wet lab" where well over a hundred students will be rotating around and looking at the scopes...
Click to expand...
 
Our histology practical went like this: everyone was given 5 microscope slides, and we had 40 minutes to identify each tissue and write a short text in defense of our decision (which cells we saw and any characteristics that define the tissue). The professor would then come by each microscope, confirm that we got the tissue right, and at a later date mark the explanations. We had to do all of the microscope work ourselves.
 
petrosgp said:
Our histology practical went like this: everyone was given 5 microscope slides, and we had 40 minutes to identify each tissue and write a short text in defense of our decision (which cells we saw and any characteristics that define the tissue). The professor would then come by each microscope, confirm that we got the tissue right, and at a later date mark the explanations. We had to do all of the microscope work ourselves.
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I would fail this.
 
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Goro said:
How 20th Century!!!!
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How do you think practicing pathologists work? They view prepared slides under the microscope. The point of histology is to learn how to look at slides so that you have some understanding of how the diagnosis is made. Then you can think critically and discuss the diagnosis like a physician instead of just taking the pathologist's word for it that these funny looking dots represent cancer rather than some benign disease.
 
I'll have to go chat with my Pathology colleagues. They swear by digitized slides.



Psai said:
How do you think practicing pathologists work? They view prepared slides under the microscope. The point of histology is to learn how to look at slides so that you have some understanding of how the diagnosis is made. Then you can think critically and discuss the diagnosis like a physician instead of just taking the pathologist's word for it that these funny looking dots represent cancer rather than some benign disease.
Click to expand...
 
petrosgp said:
Our histology practical went like this: everyone was given 5 microscope slides, and we had 40 minutes to identify each tissue and write a short text in defense of our decision (which cells we saw and any characteristics that define the tissue). The professor would then come by each microscope, confirm that we got the tissue right, and at a later date mark the explanations. We had to do all of the microscope work ourselves.
Click to expand...

...I am now terrified. May I ask which medical school you went to? Professor said we'd be "going around the room" so I really hope this isn't the case for us!
 
The Knife & Gun Club said:
Blue histo is great!

at our school the practical was basically just blue histo pictures cycling on the screen in the lecture hall while we all sat there and watched...sorry that you have to use a microscope!

There's a book called Big Picture histo that I liked as well, I think it's available for download off amazon
Click to expand...
Our histo practicals were like that too and it's still was a [insert] class...
 
At my university we had 50 questions that were projected on the screen in the M1 classroom, with about 90ish seconds per slide before moving onto the next one. It would generally be a "identify this" or "what is the function of this" type of picture. No microscopes.
 
nebuchadnezzarII said:
...I am now terrified. May I ask which medical school you went to? Professor said we'd be "going around the room" so I really hope this isn't the case for us!
Click to expand...

Well, all of you Americans are probably safe, because I'm from the EU and attending an EU school. 😛

But yeah, it wasn't that bad, actually. The lab was open for several days before the exam so we could practice. Most of the people I know identified at least 4 out of 5 samples, they are very unique save for a few.
 
petrosgp said:
Our histology practical went like this: everyone was given 5 microscope slides, and we had 40 minutes to identify each tissue and write a short text in defense of our decision (which cells we saw and any characteristics that define the tissue). The professor would then come by each microscope, confirm that we got the tissue right, and at a later date mark the explanations. We had to do all of the microscope work ourselves.
Click to expand...

40 minutes ?! We had 10 for 5 slides . Write the answer and 3 identifying characteristics but I would have loved to do the microscope work myself it makes it so much easier to work with.
 
The Knife & Gun Club said:
Blue histo is great!

at our school the practical was basically just blue histo pictures cycling on the screen in the lecture hall while we all sat there and watched...sorry that you have to use a microscope!

There's a book called Big Picture histo that I liked as well, I think it's available for download off amazon
Click to expand...

Oh how I wish we did this back in the day. Cursing into the microscope is a rite of passage.
I also think that the pathologists lobby for its continued use as that's the only exposure for many to their special kind of pain.


--
Il Destriero
 
Oh that sounds super different from my school. We are given physical slides and asked to find specific cells or structures on the microscope and show them to the proctors. There's also a digitized slide portion where we are given the digital slide and asked to do the same thing basically
 
Raryn said:
OP, there's a few different ways it can be set up... Have you considered asking someone at your school a year above you? They'd know far better than we would.
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Thanks, they actually clarified the details a little 2 days before the test! There are gonna be 15 pre-set sections with microscopes on some, photographs on others, and a few questions for each. Each station is 1 minute so it's like a 15 minute test. Doesn't seem that bad. But it's my first histology test ever so I'm nervous!
 
IlDestriero said:
Oh how I wish we did this back in the day. Cursing into the microscope is a rite of passage.
I also think that the pathologists lobby for its continued use as that's the only exposure for many to their special kind of pain.


--
Il Destriero
Click to expand...
isn't pathology hard to get into? i would think they are really into that kind of stuff
 
Ours are images or virtual slides on the computers...we take essay tests for the Block material so they have exam software all set up on our laptops anyways, so since we use virtual slides, we can all get the images on our own screens.
 
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