Don't give up your day job.

So work has been pretty full on lately and I realised that very few of you know what I do, and even if you know, you probably don't KNOW, so I am going to fill you in. Consider it, if you will, Histo 101.

A superhero movie once said "With great power comes great responsibility". I'm not sure if it was Superman, Spiderman, Batman or Captain Caveman but it was in one of them. My point is that's a bit how I feel about work. I have no power, hell, I'm a working government pleb, but responsibility I have in droves.

I work at The Canberra Hospital. I'm not sure if it's because I'm a chick or because it's an automatic assumption, but usually when I tell people I work there I get "So, you're a nurse?". Seriously? No, no I'm not. What I actually am is a Laboratory Technician in the Anatomical Pathology (Histology) Department, but we just like to call ourselves Histo Techs. Now I know, when you think science you think this: 

Yeah....Were all blond and gorgeous with test tubes and perfect titration's...MY ARSE

When in actual fact, most days I look more like:

   Alright, seriously, WTF is with all the test tubes?????

I'm suddenly beginning to wonder after my little jaunt through a Google Images search for "Laboratory Scientists" if I am being ripped of working in Histo as we don't get to play with test tubes.....EVER. Pretty coloured solutions yet, but NO TEST TUBES DAMN IT!!!!

Well, I could give you the long drawn out version of what I do, using fancy words like Microtome, Dissection, Gross Specimen (as in big, not yuck...), Formalin and all other things, but in the easiest way possible I assist Pathology registrars and Pathologists to get this:

Settle down, it's just an appendix......

 

To end up like this:

A stained section of appendix.

 

 

 

 

 

By now you're either going cool, ewwwww or huh? You know how before I said responsibility? Will it's not all Appendectomy specimens. It's also Gallbladders, Rectal and Colon Cancers, Prostates, Breast, Lungs, Spleens, Livers and Post Mortem tissues, just to name a few. That section is on a slide that a pathologist will then use to make a diagnosis off. Cancer or not? Benign or malignant? If I cock up, at any stage of this process, it has the potential to have epic ramifications on someones life. It does happen. It's sad, no beyond sad....tragic but it DOES happen. 

But not on my watch.

Love to hear any thoughts you guys have about this post. Hope you've learned a little something today. 

J