Needle biopsies, whether tissue core or FNA, require a great deal of co-operation and interplay among pathologist, cytotechnologist, and radiologist. Just how this works depends on the skills of the people involved.
For example, one place I work has a senior pathologist who is highly skilled at performing and interpreting FNA's. We have no in-house cytotechnologist there, and the radiologists are from a large group that rotates through on a one-day basis from a distant site, so we never know what radiologist we'll have. At another place, the pathologist is rarely available, but the cytotechnologist is highly skilled at assisting a radiologist or other clinicians. The in-house radiologist is also highly skilled, but we have to work with a minimum of clinical information. In all of this, the needs of the individual patient need to be considered. A frequent issue: does part of the specimen need to be sent out for flow cytometry? Is unfixed tissue needed for some special cancer study? And there's the uh-oh moment when you aspirate pus and find out that what's needed is cultures. This is one of those situations where things aren't going to get better until the bean counters figure out that our lack of access to information is costing big bucks. At age 73, I don't expect to see it. Bob Richmond Samurai Pathologist Knoxville TN _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet
