RE: Unboxing Some Monsters of the Week
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This is possibly a stupid question but at the top of the post, you said 'patient'. Does this mean the patient was still alive but minus her reproductive system (on your cutting desk!) or is the 'patient' no longer alive? This leads me to ask you about the terminology used when dealing with specimens from the living and deceased?
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No difference in terminology, a specimen can just be a fleshy piece of object that came from someone. Sometimes it's from a cadaver or someone recently being cut open to get a sample of it.
So as there is no difference in terminology, I presume there is also no difference in procedure for the 'handling' of the sample? As part of a deceased person, there is no special consideration made for family wishes or religion etc, how did you find dealing with 'lumps of a dead person' when you first started in this career path and how did you learn to remove any emotional link if there was one? ...finding it difficult to explain what I mean, sorry but it's really fascinating so thanks!
Depends on the type of specimen, some are more sensitive to decay while some require more time to sink in formalin like fatty tissues. We have a consent signed first explaining what's going to be done and some considerations do include religious views and etc.
When I see products of conception and there's a fetus in the specimen, I don't process it and separate it from the batch if I can identify it. Those are then given to the family for burial if they want it. The point of having the histopath report, one of the many, is just proving something happened scientifically on record and when you see the fetus grossly, it's not that difficult to put the mother was actually pregnant and had a miscarriage so they can claim insurance and other benefits.
I have a stoic and nihilistic view to begin with. You ever held a limb of a dead animal, have it soaked in formalin and cooled it's no different from a human hand but less hairy. We're all just bags of conscious flesh trying to live. Some think of it less and some more conscious of it, some just know how to separate work from emotions that you'll be the agent of bad news if it's malignant.
I don't have those feelings when I started and later started thinking about it more which is the opposite of the process. But my point of view still remains firm, the specimens are just pieces of flesh that I just have to do process and do my job. No different than someone sending their urine or feces for examination.
Appreciate the excellent and informative reply. As I said, really interesting post so thanks again and have a great weekend :-)