Profile

My work is either in a team, or on my own for part of the day.  It’s all about the patients and how we can best get the information from the samples.  I work with an amazing bunch and we all strive for the best.  We also communicate constantly with Doctors, Nurses, Dentists and other people as to how best get the right bit to look at and how best to get the information we need.

Samples come into us all day every day, we have aver 40 thousand a year and each one is different.  We look at them as a whole and describe it, measure it and get all the details.  We turn that sample into a wax block over night and then cut a section from it thats about 4 thousandth of a millimeter thick and put it on a glass slide.  We stain that slide with 2 chemicals to get the first real picture of whats going on.  We then, if needs be, do further stains, either for bacteria, fungus or microscopic structures that might be damaged, or we look at the imune status of the tissue (this is the molecular biology side, very interesting to me).  Also we can freeze the sample to -20 centigrade in an emergency.  Occasionally we see patients and assist in biopsy proceedures to make sure we get the best possible result.