Wow! I can’t believe a whole month has passed by so quickly – it feels like we just got here yesterday. It’s amazing how fast time can fly!
So last week, we had an amazing opportunity to meet with the CEO of the hospital, Henrique Prata. He’s the son of the two doctors who founded this hospital, and, though not a doctor himself, has worked tirelessly to make HCB what it is today. It was great to be able to meet with him!
Me, Henrique Prata, and Yian. The picture in the background is Dr. Paulo Prata, one of the hospital's founders.
After a long weekend (Monday was São Paulo State Day, a holiday for the hospital), we jumped right back into work on Tuesday. Turns out this short week has been very productive!
Yian and I have spent the last three days in the Pathology Department, testing out the GFM with the cytotechnicians. Basically, we’ve been asking cytotechs who have just finished their training to use the GFM to read 10 Pap smear slides, and identify regions of abnormalities, which we then photograph using Yian’s cell phone. This morning we gave these pictures to a pathologist here at the hospital for a diagnosis, which we’ll compare to the original diagnosis.
We’re trying to simulate the process that nurses and technicians would use when trying to read Pap smears on a Mobile Unit, but of course we’ve faced a few minor speed bumps during our tests.
The biggest speed bump so far has been with using the mechanical stage. It’s important to note that the Mobile Units currently use liquid-based cytology for their Pap smears, but all of these Pap smears are transported back to the main hospital before they are prepped and stained, because the Mobile Units do not have the space for such a procedure. If the technicians were to prepare the Pap smears on the Mobile Unit, it would have to be a conventional Pap smear.
This is important because conventional Pap smears can take up nearly all of the space of a normal slide – and before a cytotech can make a determination about the presence of abnormalities, they need to be able to see the entirety of the slide.
Two types of Pap smears: the top slide was done using liquid-based cytology and the bottom slide shows a conventional Pap smear.
We found out pretty fast that our mechanical stage on the GFM wasn’t letting the cytotechs see all the way to the edges of the slide. And what’s more, the curved hook of the slide holder was getting stuck on the body of the microscope and not letting them see the top half of the slide! We came up with two speedy solutions so that our tests wouldn’t be delayed.
First, we decided to switch out slides of conventional Pap smears for slides of Pap smears done with liquid-based cytology. Unlike conventional Pap smears, liquid-based cytology only takes up the center of the slide, which you can see in the above picture. This eliminated the problem of needing to see to the edges for the short-term, but we’ll have to come back to the issue to see if we can come up with a long-term solution for visualizing conventional Pap smears.
Secondly, to prevent the curved edge of the slide-holder from getting caught on the body of the microscope, we borrowed an electric saw and cut a bit off the top (with permission, of course).
The slide holder getting caught and preventing movement.
The mechanical stage after a slight modification
With these small adjustments, things have been going much smoother around here. It’s really just a matter of waiting until the techs are finished reading the slides before we move on to the next stage.
This has also been a good chance to get feedback on the usability of the GFM. The cytotechnicians have had a lot of interesting things to say, especially about the ergonomics of our device. Addressing the “human factor” is a really big point here at HCB, so it was really good to get feedback along those lines.
Well that’s all I’ve got for now. I hope everyone is having a very lucky Friday the 13th, and I’ll talk to you guys later!
Tchau!
Jessica