On Friday we had our monthly gross specimen conference. For these conferences the PAs bring specimens that they’ve had over the month and the Pathology Residents have to
try and diagnose what they see based on the gross morphologic findings. This month’s topic was bone and soft tissue
tumors. One of the specimens was a very
large leiomyosarcoma (about the size of a softball). In case you are curious, a leiomyosarcoma
is a malignant tumor of smooth muscle cells, which occurs most often in the
uterus and retroperitoneal soft tissue.
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| A Leiomyosarcoma courtesy of Google |
These gross specimen conferences and my gross room rotations
always make me curious of how masses can become so large before causing significant problems (or perhaps people are just ignoring the
symptoms). I would love to have the opportunity to observe a surgery for a specimen that would end up at my grossing station. It would be great to see the whole processes
and have a better perspective of how a mass might look in the body with respect
to organs and other structures.
Hey Nikki,
ReplyDeleteYou should contact a hospital near you, or even one of the hospitals you do rotations at. A lot of the time they are more than willing to let a student observe a surgery. Unfortunately it's kind of hard to pick and choose which type of surgery..
-lyuda