A Resident Day

Surgical Pathology Rotation Day 1 and Day 2 Description

The surgical pathology rotation at Creighton University Medical Center is organized into a two day cycle. Two residents are assigned to the surgical pathology rotation for one calendar month at a time. The faculty are on service for one week at a time, with one faculty covering frozen section/gross responsibilities while the other faculty is responsible for signing out cases.

Day 1

Day 1 of the cycle consists of grossing and frozen section responsibility. When the resident arrives in the morning it is his/her responsibility to look over that day’s OR schedule in order to anticipate what cases may require intra-operative gross and/or frozen section consultation.

Past surgical pathology history is then obtained and discussed with the staff covering frozen section/gross responsibilities to determine what additional ancillary studies may be required for a given case (electron microscopy, cytogenetics, virtual karyotype, etc.) and to discuss the approach to the “cutting in” of that particular specimen. Residents are notified when a frozen section is requested.

Day 2

On the morning of Day 2, the resident previews and dictates a preliminary diagnosis and microscopic description for the cases that he/she grossed the previous day.

There is ample time for a resident to preview all of his/her cases prior to sign-out with faculty. The resident then orders any special studies that may be needed for a given case (special organism stains, immunohistochemistry, etc.).