The thought of only two weeks of classwork and finals after our nice long Thanksgiving Break starting tomorrow is both a relief and nerve wrecking at the same time. It's a relief because I can't take the sight of another textbook or sitting through another two hour for a while, but it's also nerve wrecking because I'm about to apply everything I've learned over the past year as well as learning so much more for 40 hours a week for my clinical year. "Real life" is about to smack me in the face and while it is scary, I'm excited as well. I can't tell you how long I've waited to really do all the hands-on work other than the smaller specimens I've been able to do in the gross room at Ruby. Since you have an idea of how I can't believe I'm reaching this point in life, I might as well give an update about life in the program over the past few weeks. :)
Since my last post, we have had a test in Physiology on the GI tract, which was composed of 44 multiple choice questions. It was definitely the most difficult test we've had in this class over the semester and I'm happy to say that madness is over. As for other classes, we had a test in Microanatomy on bone and soft tissue, GI, female reproductive system, and endocrine pathologic processes. This test was 36 multiple choice questions that had correlating slides and based off both components, you selected an answer. Finally, we had our frozen sectioning practical last weekend. If you aren't sure what that is, I can give you an idea. When in the gross room, you can get what are called intraoperative consultations, which is when a surgeon will send tissue from the OR for immediate evaluation. This evaluation can be for margins to make sure all of the tumor had been removed from the patient or just to make sure they are in the right spot in the body. These are all about patient care and making sure that all tumor, lymph nodes, etc. have been removed from the body while the patient is still in surgery. When the PA receives it in the gross room, we have 20 minutes to get the specimen cut, slides made, a pathologists' decision, and the OR called with that decision. It needs to be a quick and efficient process so that the patient is taken care of properly. The specimen is cut using a Cryostat microtome, which cuts the tissue in 5 micron increments so they can be put on a glass slide and put through an H&E staining process. For our practical in particular, we had 10 minutes from the time we received the specimen (it was all staged by the way) to the time the slides had been cover-slipped. We were graded based on how well we evaluated the specimen and the container/requisite that was received, time, technique, and the overall appearance of the slide. The slide needed to free of any tissue folds and air bubbles. It was all about the quality of the work we submitted to the pathologists so they could make the best "diagnosis" possible.
Other than the tests and practical, we also had our clinical orientation in Pittsburgh for the UPMC hospitals so we could learn about the CoPath System they use in the gross room and how we navigate it so that we are as efficient as possible when we step up to the bench on our first day. We are halfway through our PA school adventure and the fun is only about to begin!
