Is there a reason why a pathology physician assistant couldn't perform a gross intraoperative consultation (88329), such as gross margin assessment for a breast excision. I know it isn't allowed (to my knowledge), but why not? PA's in other specialties are able to do more.

Just went to a lecture where the presenter, instead of using the sentence "killing two birds with one stone", to describe a concept modified it to read "feeding two birds with one scone". I thought that was cute. We need kinder and less violent aphorisms these days.

For MM, if you have large sentinel lymph node (such as that involved by CLL) that needs to be put in 5 cassettes should you perform SOX10, MART-1, and HMB-45 on all 5 blocks, or just a single stain (i.e MART-1) on blocks 2, 3, 4, and 5?

You don't often see basal cell carcinoma involving bone.

Does anyone knows where I can purchase EMA path requisition sheets for a reasonable price? They tend to be fairly pricey and I am only aware of one vendor. DM if you can help.

For sentinel lymph node for Merkel cell carcinoma, which immunostain would you choose 1. Pankeratin (AE1/AE3) 2. Cam5.2 3. Cytokeratin 20 4. Neurofilament 5. Synaptophysin 6. More than one of these

Monte Carlo Country Club. Amazing tennis court views

Fungus on top (overylying) my nail section. Cool morphology.

The Pautrier microabscesses don't get much better. Pautrier microabscesses are intraepidermal nests of atypical lymphocytes commonly associated with mycosis fungoides, a type of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma.

What is the difference between 1) Early melanoma in-situ 2) Early evolving MIS 3) Incipient MIS Does it mean that the melanoma in-situ is unlikely to invade anytime soon? Or, does it imply that the microscopic findings are subtle & just enough to dx MIS?

Other than University of WA, do you know who does HSV PCR on paraffin embedded tissue?

Someone should do a study on thin melanomas and determine the likelihood of sentinel lymph node positivity based of volume of tumor. Using IHC, digital pathology, and image analysis you should be able to get a reasonably accurate volume (in mm2) of melanoma in the dermis.

If half of an invasive melanoma has brisk TILs and the other half has no TILs, then how do you report in a synoptic template. Non-brisk?

Received is a tan-gray to brown irregular delicate scaly skin shave, 0.7 x 0.5 x 0.1 cm. Delicate seems like an odd word. What would you suggest to the pathology assistant: 1) it's ok 2) don't use 3) replace with friable 4) replace with thin