Hi Victor,
    We average between 100 to 150 cases per day, and between 250 to 400
blocks per day.  This depends on what type tissue we receive.  Like for
instance, radical prostates will receive 30 or more blocks (we have had as
many as 50 blocks on one case when the case has more that one specimen per
patient).  Colons, lungs, breast, radical neck dissections, spleen, etc.,
(large cases take up a lot of space and are time consuming).  But we also
receive a lot of small biopsies as well as autopsy tissue.  We have a format
that we go by as to how many cassettes each case will receive based on what
the history is and what the are looking for at this time.  We are generally
done embedding between 9:00 am - 10:00 a.m. and all slides are delivered
between 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.  Our average overtime is 3 hours or less in a
two week period.  When it is time for us to leave, and if there are any
tissues to be removed from the H&E stainer, or the immuno stainer, the ladies
in our gross room remove them for us.  When this happens, we have already
prepared the labels and logged the slides in our register.  Therefore, all
they have to do is coverslip, label and deliver them to the requesting
pathologist.  All of our equipment is automated, so this is a big time saver.
 I always said the best employee they ever hired was the automated
coverslipper.  It never calls in sick or takes vacation.  HaHa.  Just joking.
 But really, the automated equipment has made a big difference.  When I
started at our lab, we did EVERYTHING the old fashioned way.


Jeanie Wade, H.T. (ASCP)
Pathology Associates of Tyler