Keeping a log...

As second years (yay second year!) we are supposed to keep a portfolio of specimens that we gross for a couple reasons such as being able to tell future employers what we've done, ensuring that we're not missing out on any particular specimen type, etc. My first day of preceptor week was at the VA (my second day will be there too!) and I know that I grossed things... but neglected to write down how many of what. Tomorrow I will do better with that!

At some point I tried to figure out ballpark numbers of specimens that I did in my previous job. "A lot" probably isn't a very useful unit of measurement. I know that the last full year I worked we did around twenty nine thousand accessions. Approximately five or six thousand GI (and I know that about a third of them had multiple sites, so figure between seven to nine thousand actual specimens in a given year). Skins and small surgicals were each around nine and half thousand accessions (say eleven or twelve thousand individual specimens for each type) and large surgicals that the techs did were maybe five thousand (mostly not multiples but maybe six thousand actual speciments). There were only two of us for the first year and a half that I worked (although during that time I did mostly GIs, some small surgicals, and almost all of the large surgicals), and then three of us for the last two years I worked when we started added more derms, larger smalls and larges. So... "a lot" seems to sum it up. It sounds weird to say that I've done thousands of anything, but realistically I've done thousands of GIs, thousands of skins, thousands of small surgicals (so many cervical biopsies, tonsils, etc).

But! Those specimens weren't officially supervised educational specimens so while I've done them and I should hope they count in my favor when it comes time to interview (although most positions do mention that they welcome new graduates!), they won't be part of my tally this year. I hope I get a decent number of specimens documented though since I'd feel silly just having a list that says I've only done a handful of something common.