I was transporting a biopsy sample in a sealed cardboard box, and apparently the formalin leaked out. Around 100 mL may have spilled, soaking almost half my fabric car seat. It may have leaked in the boot as well.
I unknowingly spent about an hour inside the car. I felt slightly dizzy afterwards, and today I’m still feeling dizzy and fatigued.
The car is currently at Toyota, where they’re removing the seat and washing it thoroughly.
I’m concerned about both my health and whether the car will be safe to use again.
Has anyone dealt with a formalin spill like this? Is washing the seat enough, or should the foam be replaced? Could a one-time exposure cause lasting health issues? And is it safe to drive in the car again? Im so stressed

Hello, fellow pathologists! I work in a veterinary pathology lab in Eastern Europe. The system is a bit different here but we use a lot of techniques borrowed from medical path. Because of the differences not every textbooks advice is applicable, so I decided to ask for suggestions here.

I do grossing, and I’m struggling with bone samples. We are a large vet hospital lab and we work with small private vet practices who send us samples. The delivery may take a few days depending on their location.

We’re expecting a full limb amputation (a large dog breed) later this week and we were notified that the surgeon couldn’t cut off the part of the bone with a tumor. So they are only able to send the whole bone, which is the humerus. I’ll be able to gross it somewhat 24 h after the amputation.
So the question is how to preserve the bone for those 24 h. So far the idea is to ask the surgeon to put the bone into a very large container with formalin. It’s far from ideal as I know bones are hard to fix. But might better than nothing and the only available option.

And since I’m here a few more questions if you don’t mind.

1. What type of saws do you use to gross bone samples?

In our case, our ortho promised to help with the humerus grossing because I only have a hand saw (which is physically demanding to say the least even with digits amputations). Right now we are planning to buy a better saw for bone grossing. I’d like to hear about specific models :)
Frozen sections aren’t routinely used where I am :(

1. Do you use EDTA for decalcification and if yes, do you heat it up to increase the reaction speed? In my experience, EDTA worked great on tiny bone samples like endoscopic samples taken from nasal cavities. It took much longer to decalc long bones samples (sorry for the pun) the reasons of which I understand from the chemical and anatomical points of view. Perhaps, there’s a better protocol which I don’t know about. So far I was quite successful with formic acid.

I understand that there are lots of differences between med path and vet path, but bone pathology is my narrow field of interest. So I’m trying to learn as much as possible.

Thank you!

I'm a new resident in pathology,any advice for a newbie should know?

As for the background I'm from Algeria, the residency program is 5 years standard and extra more for a subspecialty

I was aiming for radiology at first then did some research and pathology seems to have a more promising future in terms of medical research and international career , my future plans include applying in research programs worldwide

So basically i want some books recommendations/ sites ..etc that would help me during residency

Also I wanna know some informations on the Ai implications in pathology in the next years

Any additional advice or opinion would be highly appreciated

Anybody preparing for neetss pathology? Esp oncopathology?

My eyesight has been stable for almost a decade but then after PGY1 year I'm now +0.5 bilaterally. Is anyone else also becoming more nearsighted? Is this a sign I should do transfusion in order not to buy new glasses every year?

I’m in a small residency program and recently started my blood bank rotation. Unfortunately, the rotation has been quite unstructured, with very limited teaching or guidance. I’m curious to hear how blood bank rotations are structured at other programs and how other residents handle the responsibilities, especially when receiving calls about unfamiliar situations or questions they haven’t been trained to address. Are you expected to manage these calls independently, or do you have senior residents or attendings available to guide you? I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences!
Also if you can recommend any resources that you find useful I would appreciate that!

Hi all! Thanks for replies on my previous post. I was curious about how other residency programs are handling didactic and rotation schedules. For example, we receive one 2-hour surg path lecture and one 2-hour cytology lecture per month, and a few lectures on heme, informatics, etc. The rest of the didactics consist of about 14+ hours of entirely resident-run RISE and AP review per month.

For non-cytology or -surg path rotations, we spend around 30-45 minutes per day discussing topics with a tech or attending, and then spend the rest of the day reading textbooks on our own. I really want to hear how other programs schedule these rotations, like renal, heme, molecular, etc.

Thanks in advance again!

Hey all! I just wanted to see if any residency programs are having residents prepare for and attend/present tumor boards (general and sub specialty) on their own without an attending present, and how would you feel if your program implemented that? Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Sad to see Holmes duping people again. As a pathologist, I reply to one of her less competent defenders here https://esmoriarty.substack.com/p/that-was-the-tweet-that-was-24-october

Hi everyone,

I've developed a strong interest in blood bank / coagulation and wanted to begin developing a CV oriented towards a blood bank fellowship and wanted to ask which fellowship programs were considered some of the better ones in the field.

Thank you!

Visa-requiring applicant. Pretty stellar stats compared to other candidates. I do have one red flag, which I’m not disclosing because this is a vent post.

Applied to one of the least competitive specialties and currently sitting at only 3 IVs... tragic.

Three. I did not dual apply and my application is screaming for path.

My brain keeps going, “WHAT ELSE DO YOU PEOPLE WANT?” Is my red flag huge enough to be visible even from International Space Station?

At this point I’m 1000% convinced I could’ve applied dermatology and gotten more interviews than this. No evidence whatsoever, but I’m emotionally prepared to defend this claim.

And before someone recommends the University of Shitsburgh or South Harmon Institute of Technology: no.

Working as an attending in a South Asian country for the last year or so. The lifestyle is good(not as great as was imagined pre-residency though), but sometimes I wish I'd gone into a clinical branch which would've given me more freedom to earn more money.

The market for pathology here is really saturated, and starting your own set-up is a daunting task. I sometimes dream of how I could've set up my own practice with just an opd and a few basic necessities if I'd gone into clinicals. But hey what's done is done I guess.

Curious about your opinion on this case. Clinical suspicion of gallbladder cancer. Grossing showed a large partly calcified gallbladder with a papillary tumor measuring about 2 cm in diameter, next to a polypoid necrotic mass. I submitted about 80% of the gallbladder wall (26 blocks). In only one block I found this tiny focus. The necrotic focus had no viable tissue.

I am tempted to ignore it as a tangetial cut, especially since it doesn't go deeper than the surface epithelium on the top of the image. Would you call it microinvasion?

Hi everyone!

We're a team of biomedical engineering students at UC Davis working with researchers and clinicians on improving intraoperative classification of ovarian masses (benign, borderline, and malignant).

We're conducting a short 5–10 minute survey to better understand current clinical workflows, challenges with frozen-section diagnosis, and unmet needs.

We're primarily looking for gynecologists, gynecologic oncologists, surgeons, and pathologists with relevant experience.

We'd really appreciate your input! If you're eligible, please consider completing our survey or sharing it with colleagues.

Survey link: https://ucdavis.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_40HwTqUrUGDsiTY

Thank you for helping us with our senior design project!

Hi all, I am AP trained in one of NYC programs and doing Cytopathology this year and will be doing sub specialty fellowship Next year ( Have a solid foundation in general surgpath except Neuro and derm). I have a couple of questions for those who have been in the same situation;
1. What is the best time to start aggressive job search?
2. Besides pathology outlines, practice match and VisaMD, what are a good sources of job listings?
3 Any specific tips and advise will be appreciated 🙏🏽

Hi everyone!

I’ll be starting my MD Pathology residency soon, and I could really use some advice and guidance from seniors and fellow residents.

I’m returning to academics after a gap of around 4 years due to marriage and having a child. During this time, I haven’t had much interaction with my peers or been involved in a hospital setting, and I feel like I’ve lost touch with my medical knowledge. Honestly, my confidence has taken a hit, and I’m quite nervous about starting residency. Sometimes, I feel like I’ve forgotten everything I learned during MBBS.

I would really appreciate it if you could help me understand a few things:

1. What are the usual duties and responsibilities of a first-year MD Pathology resident? What does a typical day look like?
2. Is there anything I should study before joining? If yes, which topics or books would you recommend?
3. How should I approach studying during residency? How do you balance routine departmental work with academics?
4. What basic skills or concepts should I brush up on before starting? Should I revise general pathology, hematology, histopathology, or something else?
5. What do you wish you had known before starting your first year of Pathology residency?

I know residency will be a learning process, but starting after such a long gap makes me anxious, and I sometimes worry whether I’ll be able to cope.

Any practical advice, study tips, resources, or words of encouragement would mean a lot to me. Thank you! ❤️

Since there don’t seem to be any Anki decks for the WHO Blue Book, I experimented using Claude to generate one. I prompted it to use a lot of images and tried to make something decent.

Here is the thoracic chapter as an example. It is separated into chapters, and you can always feed it back into AI to customize it into a certain style, trim it down, add more detail, etc.

Thoughts or suggestions? I know some people here aren’t fans of Anki or AI, but I think it’s a decent use.

Hi, I am entering MS3 after finishing my PhD at a Tier 1 school. I want to become a professor and a pathologist - either molecular, transfusion med, or hemepath, and think pathology PSTP is the best option for me. Which programs are the most prestigious PSTPs? I plan on CP only and following the path that several CP only faculty leading basic science labs have done. My background is in cell biology.

Amongst UW, Stanford, UCSF, Hopkins, MGB, Michigan, WUSTL, Yale… which are places that people look at and say “WOW that person went to X for CP PSTP.”

Sorry I know this is a super vain question but I doubt I’m the only one thinking this and would just like current attendings, residents, fellows, etc to give some clarity.

There’s also a wide range of wowness in terms of folks I’m seeing on various websites for their PSTPs. Like some have first author CNS and like kinda well known in their field already… others barely have first author papers but are in the same program. How does that happen?

I am planning to pursue MD Biochemistry in India, appear for FRCpath and enter work in the UK.
I would really appreciate guidance from anyone who has pursued this route or has any idea about how this pathway works.

My main questions are:

Career pathway: After completing MD Biochemistry in India, what are the possible routes to working in Clinical Biochemistry/Chemical Pathology in the UK? Would I need additional training or qualifications before I could work in the NHS?
FRCPath eligibility: Can apply for FRCPath Clinical Biochemistry Part 1 while still in postgraduation? Are there any specific eligibility requirements or recommended training experience I should know about?
Study resources: Which textbooks, question banks, online resources or mock tests would you recommend for FRCPath Clinical Biochemistry Part 1?
Coaching and courses: Are there any genuine online coaching programmes, recorded lectures, revision courses or mentoring opportunities specifically for Clinical Biochemistry/Chemical Pathology PART 1 and PART 2? I’ve come across several FRCPath courses, but many seem to focus on Histopathology rather than Clinical Biochemistry.
Career prospects: How realistic is it for an IMG with an Indian MD Biochemistry to enter this specialty in the UK? What additional steps would make the transition more feasible?

I’m hoping to start preparing during my MD or soon after completing it, so any advice about when to begin would also be very helpful.

I would especially appreciate responses from IMGs who have taken FRCPath Clinical Biochemistry, doctors currently working in UK Clinical Biochemistry/Chemical Pathology, or trainees familiar with the recruitment process.