Week 4: Molecular Pathology & Equipment

There is pathology beyond surgical pathology. I had heard rumors of the fabled divisions of hematopathology, cytopathology, microbiology, molecular pathology, and even an experimental pathology. In the last few weeks, I learned that pathology receives all kinds of tissue and specimen, so I guess it makes sense to break it up into different specialties within pathology, each with their own tests and equipment. I never really considered how much goes on in the hospital that involves removing something from the body, but I have found out that there is a lot!

This week, I got to see other sides of pathology, in particular molecular pathology. Surgical pathology takes the organs and biopsies so they can look at the cellular structure, but molecular takes their samples to look at the DNA/RNA or viruses present. I spent some time this week touring the molecular pathology labs and workspaces. One of the most impressive areas, in my opinion, is a huge space called the Central Lab. 

 It looks kind of like this [1]:
And this [2]:
There are lots of machines (which I love!), and many of the processes are automated. There is one large conveyor belt that takes each sample, scans the label, and brings it to a specific machine for preparation. Each sample is processed and then stored, all automatically. This was a very impressive process that I really enjoyed seeing!

I learned there are many considerations that go into getting a piece of medical equipment including availability of space, existing workflow and how the new technology fits into it, back-up systems (especially for clinical equipment), software updates and compatibility, ease of use and training, and data storage and retrieval. I learned about state vs. national regulations for validation of clinical equipment (New York is pretty stringent) and had a fun time trying to remember the names and functions of each machine.

Back in Surgical Pathology, Dr. Robinson is currently working on a research project to determine the quality of prostate biopsies obtained using different techniques. We got to look at a few more prostate core biopsy slides, and Dr. Robinson took length measurements of the different zones in the prostate. It’ll be interesting to see how that turns out!

This afternoon, I got to practice taking biopsies using a biopsy gun and new chips that allow the surgeon to take 6 biopsies and orient each of them. 
Biopsy gun [3]

Biopsy chip [4]

Taking biopsies is not something pathologist do regularly (actually, they don't do it at all), but we want to find out if the biopsy chips would provide helpful information. We'll get to see the results next week!

I am excited to see even more aspects of pathology in the next few weeks. It has been interesting to learn about the type of research that is done in this department, and I can’t wait to see more!

 [1] https://www.northwell.edu/find-care/services-we-offer/pathology
[2] https://pathology.weill.cornell.edu/clinical-services/laboratory-medicine
[3] http://www.colmed.in/surgical-supplies/bardr-max-corerdisposable-core-biopsy-instrument-18gx20cm-box-of-5.html
[4] http://www.captodayonline.com/bxchip-allows-six-needle-core-specimens-per-block/ 

Rose Buchmann

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