A little less than a month ago, 3 days before the JCAHO inspection, 
     someone "stole" our standard operating procedure right out of the 
     histology lab.  We apparently have no back up, though everyone 
     apparently assumed there was. Our star histotech supervisor, Dawn 
     Olszewski, that spent months getting this SOP together (before my time) 
     moved last week back to Utah.  It may be months before we can fill her 
     position, since this is Landstuhl Army Medical Center, Germany.  In the 
     meantime, we are now out of compliance with CAP and pretty desperate to 
     deal with this inconceivable situation.  I have communicated with my 
     previous duty station and they sent what they could, but it's not 
     enough.  I am looking for a complete histology SOP from a recently CAP 
     accredited lab so our remaining capable tech, airman Badley, can modify 
     it to "fit" our situation, before she leaves in December 1999.  It is 
     way too much to ask her to write one from scratch--since she is also 
     having to help the medical examiner with the forensic autopsies due to 
     deployments of mortuary staff to Albania, in addition all the 
     "supervisor" work.  We need everything from how a specimen is 
     accessioned and processed (including hand processing, reprocessing, and 
     decal) to proper glassware washing to daily, weekly, monthly, etc. 
     QC/maintenance and safety type stuff.  You name it, we don't have it.  
     We DO have our special stains SOPS; we don't do immunos here.  We have 
     the following equipment:  Tissue Tek embedding centers, Shandon 
     Hypercenter XP Tissue Processors, Shandon Cass Mark 2, Tissue Tek 
     automated DRS slide stainer, Tissue Tek SCA coverslipper, Leica Jung 
     Frigocut 2800E cryostat, Leica Jung 2035 Biocut microtomes.  If you can 
     help, know someone who can, or have any better ideas, please get back 
     with me.
     
     LTC Margaret Richardson, MD
     LRMC Dept. Pathology and Lab Medicine 
     margaret@polyphoto.com