How My Interactions with Lab Staff Refined My Perspective

During PGY-1, my effort was mostly focused on navigating and finding where I fit into the system that is known as residency. Having not been the most clinically oriented medical student and unfamiliar with gathering patient info from electronic medical records (we had paper charts during medical school), I initially found the task of working up a patient difficult. I was often so focused on not missing an important detail that I missed the forest and only saw the trees. But in clinical medicine, it’s most important to discern what the most relevant facts are and integrate them quickly to uncover the big picture.

Being a resident is not like being a student and we eventually have to outgrow these growing pains or get left behind. It’s no longer a situation where the consequence of not doing well only impacts oneself. The stakes are higher because patient safety is involved. I know friends who were let go from their programs, not because they were not hard working, but because they could not adapt, multi-task, and keep up the required pace.

As pathology residents, we do not often see patients and it is easy to become disconnected from them.

What really refined my outlook was when I began to interact more with the lab technicians during my hematopathology rotation. They identified patients with concerning peripheral blood smears and often asked follow-up questions to find out what happened to that particular patient. Even though they could not access medical records, they still wanted to know how that particular patient fared, even though they scanned many other patients’ smears that day. I find the same with the technicians on my current molecular pathology rotation and I look forward to these interactions each day.

As pathology residents, we do not often see patients and it is easy to become disconnected from them. The many hours grossing, putting together tumor boards and morbidity and mortality presentations, and following up on critical values and inappropriately ordered tests can leave us jaded. I find that I follow up on patients more now even after the case is signed out. I credit working more closely with our technicians for my rejuvenated interest in patients as more than a case number. So, my advice to residents out there is to interact with and learn as much as you can from your technical staff because they really do have much to offer if asked.

I’ll be at the ASCP Annual Meeting this week to present a poster and receive a resident leadership award, so next blog post, I’ll let you know how it turned out!

-Betty Chung