[Histonet] Gross Photography

[Sate Hamza]

As a pathologist, I am a strong proponent of ample gross photography in the
cutting room. When I first started in my current place, I thought that not
much gross photography was being done. This has increased in recent years in
our center. I always encourage our residents to take digital gross
photographs. I recently bought an easy to use digital camera and gave it as
a gift to our cutting room to encourage more digital photographs.

I think that the availability of easy to use digital cameras has made taking
pictures much easier. A picture is a great tool for documentation and for
communication. No matter how skillful and expressive the gross description
is, a picture can make things much easier for sign out. If sections need to
be mapped for margins or other considerations, one can take a digital
picture, make a quick print out of it and map the sections on it. Such
pictures are so helpful, for example, for excisions of flat pigmented
lesions from sun-damaged skin. Gross-microscopic correlation can help so
much in assessing margin status (this can be so difficult with microscopy
alone). It also helps in excisions of vulvar lesions/tumors and in
irregularly shaped complex excisions from any site.

The digital photos can be taken quickly. They do not need to be textbook
quality. The goal usually is to facilitate communication and facilitate the
sign-out process.

The pictures that our PAs take are placed on a network server in folders
that are named with the accession number. The printouts with sections mapped
are kept in a binder in the cutting room where a pathologist can find them
when the need arises.

Sate

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 6:30 PM, Joe Nocito <jnocito <@t> satx.rr.com> wrote:

> like Mike,
> we only photograph unusual specimens. Seems photographing specimens has
> become less and less important. Kind of like autopsies.
>



-- 
Sate Hamza, MD, FRCPC
Dermatopathologist
Winnipeg, Canada