My last day at the clinic could not have been better! I had the privilege of spending today in the lab, which was a unique experience considering that many dermatologist offices do not have labs. I witnessed a whole plethora of things that the histologists (histology: study of tissue) do, and needless to say, I was very impressed. The day started off with a diligent recording of the temperature of every piece of equipment in the lab from the fridge to the water bath. Afterwards, some machinery had to be self-cleaned, so while they were cleaning, the cell fragments from the night before were carefully removed and placed in paraffin wax and set to cool. While they were cooling, we moved on to paperwork and to filing the new extractions that came in this morning. After getting all of the paperwork out of the way, I was introduced to a super cool printer that prints out customized slides for the cell slivers to be transferred on. After all of the slides were printed, the real fun began as we started to shave thin slivers of the extractions trapped in wax. Each block of paraffin wax containing slivers of skin extractions is shaved down and carefully placed into a temperature controlled water bath. From there, the specific patient slide is submerged in water and the histologist determines which shavings should end up on the final slide. Once all of the slides have been filled, the slides are transferred to an automated stainer and the process begins anew. I have included a picture of the shavings of skin in a water bath that were extracted using the method of punching. The method is exactly how it sounds with a device punching out a small cylinder of skin. Overall, the lab was super fun and I’m glad that’s how I ended my fun run!
