[Histonet] Amputated Limb Storage

[Bob Richmond]

Amy Self, Histology Lab Senior Tech, Tidelands Georgetown Memorial
Hospital, Georgetown SC asks:

>>How is everyone storing their amputated limbs that are received in
pathology?  Are they stored in the morgue or in a refrigerator located
within the department and at what temperature is suggested for the storage
of amputated limbs?<<

Here's the opinion of an elderly pathologist who's dissected his share of
these (personal record is six in a day). Do NOT let these specimens sit
around, because they stink, some of them when they arrive, and they can
easily ruin a refrigerator with an ineradicable smell. Your pathologist
must dissect them promptly, and they should be stored in the morgue, and
disposed of as fast as possible. I never heard of anybody going back to the
gross specimen, at least I never have. I've walked a good many of them to
the hospital incinerator (way back when) myself.

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
Maryville TN