John A. Kiernan wrote

<Snipped>

"It was this plain talk that attracted me back from
Medicine (with all the soft talk to disguise ignorance) into Science
where it was OK to say you didn't know something and to postulate
that nobody else did either."

As usual, well said John. It gets no better. Histologic and cytologic diagnoses are now expected to be the equivalent of landing on the point of a needle. 
However (and pardon the continuing metaphor) the ability to discriminate between a needle and a baseball bat is moot, and the relevance of so doing is frequently undetermined. 
Alternatively, it is determined, but will change next week.

Terry L Marshall
Histopathologist
Rotherham General Hospital, Yorkshire