[Histonet] Waterbath cleanliness

[Garrey Faller]

Hi everyone,

I am looking for a histotech procedure for keeping the water bath clean and
for preventing cross contamination of patient specimens. I know one should
use a kim wipe (or something similar) to clean the water surface of any
ribbon debris between cases. However, should the top edge of the water bath
be clean of all debris between every case?  Sometimes I see a mound-like
build up of paraffin ribbon debris, and I am told that this is a normal
practice while others say that it is not.
I'd like to modify my policy to say that there should be no debris on the
water surface or on the hard top edge of the water bath in between cases.
Is this out of line? Is this what everyone practices?

Also, with the exception of rush type cases and perhaps large specimens,
does everyone embed in numerical order and then cut in numerical order?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Garrey  Faller
Pathologist