One night, a container came in. You could hear the rattling inside the container. Almost immediately, the processor tried to open it. One of my colleagues stopped her on the spot and took it under the biosafety cabinet. You would think people have learned to never open any patient specimens in the open air by now.
Anyways, it appeared someone had some intense surgery.
With a specimen that large, it presented some challenges for culturing. We wanted to get the best representation of the entire piece. My coworker tried his best to process the sample. He took a sterile swab and started swabbing the specimen. Afterward, he dipped the swab in the thioglycolate broth. Finally, he proceeded to inoculate the agars.
That concluded the most exciting patient sample I've seen all week. Until, of course, I saw this gem in the shared walk-in freezer with the Rapid Response Department.
Okay, it's not a patient, and I wasn't about to peek inside. I guess they were going to screen for rabies or something. My other colleagues had a good chuckle. Our clinical labs do handle specimens from vets and whatnot from time to time.
Until next time.
Posted with STEMGeeks
🤣Raccoon head? I'm not sure which sample is worse! But one definitely doesn't see a rabid raccoon every day.
!PIZZA
I don’t see that everyday either.
Biosafety cabinet? nah man we just yolo it in open air on frozen sections. I don't think about it much when it's already soaked in formalin. I'm still alive and have faith that my Hep B booster shots are enough to get me through after receiving some cuts during dissection.
Yeah, didn’t need to contaminate the specimen on our end.
It is a good lesson to not open anything in the open air!
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Kind of.
I'm curious about that variable thickness
They usually don't put titanium in the skull unless there are deformities.
Eeeaioouu!!!
Gwad!
CRAZY!
I would love to witness the surgery, but also scared by what I’d see.
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Why would you be sent a piece of someone's skull? What could you be looking for?
Most surgical samples screen for possible post-op infection.
Racoon head? Ok, that's bizarre although I used to keep wild animals in a freezer for taxidermy so I can't really be judgy 🤣
This is probably a dumb question but I'm going to ask it anyway - what are the drain cover type things on the specimen?
They look like titanium parts used in cranioplasty. I don’t know much more beyond that.
Interesting. I need to look this up. I have never seen that kind of thing before as I don't work in that sort of industry, but still find it kinda fascinating. I'm ok with how weird I am 🙂
Dang, talk about an exciting job! That is totally crazy!
It's actually pretty monotonous most days.
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