[Histonet] RE: Qualifications for grossing

[Jay Lundgren]

I agree with Renee's post completely. When the motivation is greed, and not
patient care, we, as laboratory professionals, should be concerned.  I
think we should all realize that the regulations are there to protect ALL
of our livelihoods, HTs, PAs, MDs, HTLs, and everyone who works in the lab.

Patients (insurance companies, the Federal government) would not pay for
testing anymore if the results were invalid.

If I were a Histology Superintendent thinking of having an under trained
laboratory aide do immunohistochemistry, or gross:

 Could you get away with it?:  Sure.  Save $40,000. / year per HTL you
replace, more if PA.

 Would you want that to be your specimen? : No.

 What would one nasty malpractice lawsuit cost your facility?: Potentially
multi-millions of dollars.

Hiring unqualified techs is false economy.  Reimburse your lab aides for
tuition if you want them to do high complexity testing.

Apologies to any lab aides with PhDs, or any 6th grade dropouts with 30
years of X-ray Crystallography and Proteomics bench experience.

                                                               Sincerely,


                                                                    Jay A.
Lundgren, M.S., HTL (ASCP)