Proud

When you win the theatre frozen section sweepstake.

For the uninitiated (and I know explaining a joke is the kiss of death, so I do apologize for that): the surgeon chops a little bit of their patient out that they think looks funny and shouldn’t be there, and sends it off in a little jar to the pathologist in their lair far away in a laboratory in a different part of the hospital. The pathologist looks at it under a microscope, identifies what it is, and then rings the theatre to let the surgeon know what it is they’ve removed. Simple, right, and surely the work of but a moment? But no, it always takes forever.

First, the paperwork has to be done, and the lab warned ahead of time, presumably so they can rearrange their golf date and lunch plans, or whatever. Then the nurse has to find an orderly who might be vaguely interested in heading in that direction. Hopefully it isn’t their lunch break, either, and they don’t decide to be efficient and combine it with a number of other tasks on their way to the lab. When they get there, they have to find a lab tech who’ll take responsibility, and sign the specimen over. What happens after this is only conjecture on my part. It’s called a frozen section but I don’t think anything cold happens to it. I think it has to be encased in paraffin and then dipped into some sort of dye, sliced very thinly and then looked at under the microscope. (Eds note: are you sure about this? Worth doing some research?) The pathologist then consults a textbook, takes a photo, checks on google, gets distracted by instagram, asks their colleagues who aren’t playing golf or away at lunch what they think (“but what’s that funny smeary red thing over there in the corner?”), and only then will finally ring the theatre to deliver their verdict in the most ass covering way possible a la radiology  (well it looks like it might be osteogangliopetechiosis, but clinical correlation is very important, and we need to compare it with a larger specimen to be certain, is there more tissue coming?) In the worst case scenario, you wait around 45 minutes only for the pathogist to tell you there isn’t enough specimen and you need to send more, or even more embarrassing  and it’s normal tissue (“did you mean to send me a small piece of snot?”). In that case the surgeon has to get some more tissue and send it off, and the whole cycle begins again. Anyway, there’s an art to estimating how long the process is going to take from go to whoa, and that’s where the sweepstake comes in. Once the specimen begins it’s journey out of theatre, everyone guesses how long it’s going to be before we get the phone call, and today I got it right – 40 minutes on the button. The way I’ve written it makes it sound as if it’s a callous business – after all, it’s rather an important process for the patient. It’s lucky they’re asleep or otherwise it would be quite nerve racking (not to mention painful). Are we callous? Maybe we are. Anyway, it’s not as if we win anything – it’s only pride at stake.