I've been struggling lately to find blog-worthy topics. I absolutely love my job. I look forward to getting into the lab every day. There's no way to predict what will walk in the door! Unfortunately, most of the stories that I can spin these days, based on events at work that I find interesting or amusing, are inappropriate for public retelling. And I don't think that I want to turn this blog into "Tales From The Necropsy Floor." Even most veterinarians don't want to see endless photos of diseased tissues in dead animals.
As an example of a story that isn't suitable for public consumption, consider the rabbit we received last week. Most of the small animal submissions we receive are wrapped in bags or tarps then placed in a cooler or box or some other opaque container. The rabbit arrived in a small cardboard box, taped up for shipping. The necropsy techs were at lunch so I told Receiving I'd carry the remains back to necropsy. I opened the box to look for the paperwork...and found the submission form folded up and laid on top of the rabbit. No other packaging, not even a WalMart bag. Just the dead rabbit and a folded up piece of paper in an otherwise empty cardboard box. There are several layers of subtext as to why this was funny...but I don't think I can spin any of them into an acceptable party tale.
Here's another example. My interest in laying hens and ovarian/oviductal cancer is underlain by a deeper interest in reproduction. I now have access to many different species of animal, and I've begun building a library of fixed tissues and slides of reproductive tissues, both with disease and without. We recently received a male sugar glider for necropsy. I did some research and learned that, like most marsupials, sugar gliders have some freaky ass reproductive organs. I walked in to necropsy, pulling on the heavy gloves we wear and snapping them in place just like they do on the TV, and announced to my two techs, "Sugar gliders have a forked penis. I'm adding this one to my collection." They just laughed. Yes, I am perfectly aware that writing it out like this makes me sound like a psychopath. But I've explained to them my interest in reproduction and my desire to understand both the gross and the microscopic appearance of reproductive tissues of all kinds of animals. So I deliberately collect those tissues even if they don't have anything to do with the cause of death of the animal. This is another aspect of my job that I can't discuss outside of work.
Here's a third example. Besides animal remains for necropsy, we also get surgical biopsies submitted by veterinarians located all over the state. These are lumps and bumps and masses that they remove from their patients and send to us so we can make slides and have a pathologist look at them to make a diagnosis. The basic process is for the submitting veterinarian to place the tissue in formalin. This chemical causes proteins in the tissue to become cross-linked so the tissue becomes stiff and sort of rubbery. We then cut thin pieces from the tissue, embed that in paraffin wax, then cut even thinner slices of that and mount it on a glass microscope slide. The tissue is stained, a cover slip is glued on, and then the pathologist gets that slide for interpretation.
When I took over supervisory duties for the Pathology section, I instituted several new QC processes, especially for the surgical biopsy submissions. There had been none in place before--apparently it was left up to the techs to decide how to cut up the submitted tissues. They would often slice up tumors in ways that suited them, but that did not produce diagnostic samples or slides. I now examine every biopsy submission and give the techs written instructions for key areas to focus on. Sometimes I give instructions to leave submissions in formalin for another 24-48 hours, or note that the sample is extremely fatty and needs to be placed in a different fixative.
Last week, we received a tissue sample from a young Great Dane bitch. It was an external "mass" that was growing adjacent to the vulva of the dog. The vet excised it and sent it to us in a pill bottle. Not a good choice--pill bottles leak, and formalin is hazardous. They didn't put enough formalin in the bottle and most of the tissue sample was uncovered. Suspecting that it wasn't adequately fixed, I pulled it out to take a look and promptly bonked my forehead on the glass door of the fume hood as I yelped "My god, it's an alien baby!" The tissue was so complex and so confusing that I immediately called the submitting veterinarian to find out more. Turns out she was just as perplexed as I was, and was hoping that we would tell her what it was. I tweaked her a bit for sending the damned thing in a leaking pill bottle, which she took with good grace.
I drew a picture of the alien baby with trimming instructions for the techs. Then I sent a wordy email to the pathologist I was sending the slides to so he would have some context about why I was sending him 10 slides for a single biopsy submission (most only require a single slide). I described the alien baby in great detail. He replied with a mock histopathology report with phrases like "mixture of reptilian and insectoid features." It was hysterical. And I'll never be able to tell this story in public.
