On Call Duties

• The residents communicate with surgeons and others who require frozen
• The residents accession, perform gross evaluation, dissection and description, and selection of blocks for freezing or rush processing.
• Residents freeze tissue, cut frozen sections and stain frozen section slides.
• Residents assist the faculty in reaching an accurate frozen section or rush diagnoses, formulating their own opinion prior to faculty review whenever possible.
• Residents communicate results of frozen sections and rush cases to the clinical staff and answer questions about the diagnostic and prognostic implications.

During this rotation the residents will on average have at least one out of every seven days free of hospital duties. Due to the at-home nature of call and the limited number of emergencies, the call duties are constructed in the following fashion. The residents are on at-home/pager call every other to every third week. The on-call periods last from 7:00 a.m. on Friday morning through the weekend, ending at 7:00 a.m. on the subsequent Friday. While on-call, residents are supervised by a West Virginia University Teaching Faculty Member, who is available at all times, either via their office phone, pager, or home phone. On-call activities are reviewed with the residents on an on-going basis as evening and weekend calls are received. A faculty member is always present when a final diagnosis is established and at any time before, as necessary.

During the on-call period, the resident is responsible for handling clinical requests that arise during off hours, emergent operating room consultations, weekend rush biopsies, emergency off-hour autopsies with the approval of the on-call staff pathologist, and routine weekend autopsies that present before 2:00 P.M.

Charleston Area Medical Center

Same as WVUH except that there is no weekend on-call rotation.

Communication with On-duty Faculty

During general working hours, the on-service teaching faculty is available in person; other faculty members are available by scheduled appointment, by phone, by pager. During the on call hours, the on-call teaching faculty is continuously available either at home by phone or by pager.

Structured Education and Management of the Surgical Pathology Laboratory

The residents attend scheduled quality assurance, laboratory safety, and other appropriate staff meetings, as they relate surgical pathology. As opportunity provides, residents will be allowed to participate in CAP laboratory accreditation activities, including self-inspections and inspections of other institutions. Residents are urged to attend an Inspection Training Course provided by the CAP.