Thread by @Chucktowndoc

Today was a great day. Perhaps one of my best as a pathologist. Let me tell you why. /Thread. #pathology

About two years ago, I signed out a placenta on a sad IUFD case. I made a relatively rare diagnosis, but not a big diagnostic challenge. Most of the residents on this platform could have made it. The specific Dx isn’t important. What’s important is that it is known to recur.

This year...two years later...the obstetrician called me and asked me to review another placenta on the same patient. One of my partners had signed it out. It wasn’t entirely normal, but it looked much better than the placenta from the IUFD 2 years earlier.

I told the obstetrician what I thought...I basically agreed with my partners Dx. The obstetrician said the patient had a lot of questions about her diagnosis and the findings in both placentas and wondered if I would talk to her. I said of course...please have her call me.

That was about a month ago. She called me today. I answered her questions as best I could. She had been treated with prophylactic medication in an effort to prevent another IUFD, and it had been successful.

She had a healthy baby at home. This year’s placenta wasn’t entirely normal, but it served its purpose. It got her baby to term and through delivery. I explained to her that I thought the drugs she had been given had worked.

Then she said, “Thank you. Thank you for my baby. If you hadn’t caught this two years ago, I don’t think I’d have her.”

That caught me off guard, and I almost lost it. I thanked her for her kind words, and wished her well.

I’ve been on cloud nine all day since then.

I think we sometimes forget in #pathology how important our work is., or at least I sometimes forget. The truth is we all affect patients’ lives every day. We do good work.

Pathologists friends...you do good work. Don’t forget it. Be proud.