Vicki Gauch in Albany NY writes about the Shandon Grosslab Senior tissue 
grossing station:

>>The workstation is height adjustable, offers motion sensitive controls for 
the water, waste disposal unit and rinse function for cleaning the flat 
grossing surface.  The unit is well lit and has plenty of room for 
instruments, ink, paper towels and whatever else you keep on your station. We 
also have our dictation system unit in the unit. I would say the only 
inconvenient part of the unit is that there is no place to keep blocking 
sheets (yes, we still use sheets we manually write in the number of 
pieces/block submitted).<<

I always dread encountering one of these fancy grossing stations - most of 
all the ones touted as "designed by a pathologist" at a new locum tenens job. 
Most of them are nightmares of spraying water flashing lights, and 
dictation-obscuring noise. Any move is likely to be greeted by a spray of 
water that blows potentially infectious aerosol into your face.

If I ever have to design a grossing station, and suicide isn't an option, I 
want to be able to work with the lights on and the water off. I want 
magnification that works, including a dissecting microscope in easy reach. 
The station needs to be configured so that a pathologist can work alone (as 
Good Management now requires) or with an assistant (nearly halves my time 
spent grossing). The dictation system needs to be configured so that 
dictation isn't obscured by the noise of fans or running water.

And yes, I want a place to put that "blocking sheet". I rarely see a lab that 
writes down counts and other information about what was submitted in the 
cassette, and I think these records ought to be required, at least by the 
College of American Pathologists. It doesn't make sense to me that a patient 
should be subjected to misery and expense to obtain a few very small 
specimens, and then the embedder (who came to work early after all, and is 
probably gone home by the time I gross) doesn't know how many pieces of 
tissue the pathologist put in the cassette.

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
Knoxville TN