Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
out: 'This is beautiful! This one we must add to the collection'. The
others agree. The 'beautiful' sample is said to be colon cancer.
During another daily demm with another personnel group at Cyto lab,
the cytologist calls out 'This is beautiful! You should take a picture of this!'
They talk about the sample as a 'crystal clear HPV'. The cytodiagnostician
turns towards me and says: 'You can see that, can't you?'
The examples from the fi eld notes above derive from two different demm
sessions at Cyto lab, out of many, in which there were examples of 'beautiful'
cells. The 'beautiful' cells in the two cases seemed to have little in common:
the fi rst case was about a type of cancer, and the second case was about signs
of HPV (virus). Yet, the participants referred to both cases as 'beautiful'.
In the second case above, the cytodiagnosticians thought that I, a researcher
not trained in cytology, might also see what was beautiful in a 'crystal clear'
HPV. However, I could not see anything I perceived as 'beautiful', neither
with the colon cancer cells nor with the HPV affected cells. All demm
sessions I attended occasionally contained samples described as beautiful
regardless of whether the assessment concerned normal or malignant cells,
or bacteria, candida, or viral effects on cells. For example, during one
diagnostic session there was a group of cells that was described as 'very
beautiful benign urothelial cells'. To me the same group of cells appeared as
round, delineated, dark blue dots that were lying some distance from each
other in a regular pattern. As exemplifi ed below by Pia at Cyto lab, beautiful
cases were not only talked about during demm:
When you sit two [cytodiagnosticians] in a room, 'Can you look at this?'
'No, look, it is really nice-looking, this CIS.'
The fi rst cytologist in the examples from the demm above talked about
adding 'the beautiful colon cancer' to the collection, and the second one
talked about taking a picture of the 'crystal clear HPV'. Thus, these beautiful
cases were talked about in terms of being
preserved
for some additional
purpose. This was a common theme during the demm whenever a 'beautiful'
case was determined. But why did some cases merit preservation? What was
the difference between these cases and other ones? The cytodiagnosticians
occasionally talked about samples that should be preserved, as well:
Yes, we are talking about textbook examples then, that are good to have
in a collection.
As described below, expressions like 'collections' and 'textbook examples'
seemed to refer to exceptionally clear and typical cases:
When the changes are in the surface cells, in the superfi cial cells, in the
sample. If it's those cells that are not normal, then it is CIN I. And then,
