Week One at Allegheny General Hospital Surgical Pathology Laboratory

What a first week! The gross lab at Allegheny General has been a week of firsts for myself in many aspects. I've finally had the opportunity to gross my first gall bladders, digit amputations, colon and even a lower limb. These kinds of specimens are seen routinely at most surgical pathology laboratories so I can expect to perform many more throughout my future rotations and career.

The PAs and residents at Allegheny have been most helpful in answering my many questions. I believe that this brings up one of my weak points (or it could be a strong point in disguise) and that is that I pay a lot of attention to detail. Perhaps too much so. What happens is that I try and find every little thing that I can describe about a specimen and then I have trouble trying to find the words to describe in detail what I saw. Commonly I find myself describing so much that I make run on sentences or I stumble trying to find the words that I need. This slows me down. One of my goals while I'm at this site is to increase the speed at which I can gross specimens without sacrificing detail in my dictations.

My attention to detail has been a boon of other sorts however. For example, I noticed a well hidden ulcer in one of my specimens and was commended for catching it. With more experience, I am sure that I will become more proficient at what to include and what to exclude from my dictations.

The dictation system at Allegheny General Hospital actually uses a speaker phone to record your voice and sends your recording to a transcriptionist who translates your words into the computer. At first I had trouble adjusting to this because at Magee's Women's Hospital we used a software called 'Voiceover' to translate your words directly onto a computer screen in front of you. But, although only a week has passed, I actually prefer speaking into a microphone without having to deal with the computer screen.

The biggest drawback to just speaking into a microphone is that you can't see what you've said right in front of you. That is why it is very important to develop a routine for your gross and do it the same every time so that you don't forget or leave out something. I'm still getting used to the system, but I've found that I can speak more quickly into the microphone if I don't have to worry about how the software translates my words. The transcriptionists know to put a period at the end of each of my sentences and they also know when to add paragraphs or commas and make other grammatical corrections. The software on the other hand needs to have each of these spoon-fed to it. When using the software I find myself correcting formatting issues more than anything else.
"Why did it put a space there?!"
"Why did it put a hyphen there?!"
"Why does type out 'next item' instead of moving to the next item?!"
These types of infuriating technical issues are absent when you have a human at the other side. The transcriptionists at Allegheny General Hospital have my big thanks!

I am also pleased to announce that I have my first interview for a PA position at UC Davis on Tuesday! This interview is going to be conducted over SKYPE, so I am interested to see how smoothly things will turn out. It is still early in the year, but it is recommended for all PA students to get their names out there and apply for positions. The biggest obstacle to me being employed at UC Davis will be the long wait between now and my graduation eight months from now in December. If they are willing to wait until then, then I have no reason to turn down their offer. I won't know all of the details for certain until the interview, but it looks like an ideal place for myself to gain experience, integrate into their system and settle down.

In addition to a busy first week at Allegheny General Hospital, I've finally begun the arduous process of applying for a K-1 visa for Hanako to come to the United States. Hopefully, if I am able to send off the initial forms by the end of this month, then by the time that December rolls around she will be able to come to the US to get married and I'll already have a place of employment decided.

As many of you readers probably already know, Hanako is living in Miyagi Prefecture in Japan. It is the prefecture directly north of and adjacent to Fukushima. I still worry everyday about my friends, colleagues and students still in Fukushima due to the continued release of radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Looking at these photos of the plant and the extent of the damage makes me want to get Hanako out of Japan as soon as possible. You can see a myriad of the most recent photos here: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/04/a-visual-tour-of-the-fuel-pools-of-fukushima.html
They aren't pretty.

In the meantime, the only thing I can do is to try my best at work and learn as much as I can while doing these rotations. An opportunity like this will never exist again once I graduate, so it makes my hectic days all the more meaningful.