Opinions...Cytyc or Tripath(thinprep or surepath)

[Anonymous]

Yes, that is what I was talking about.Even though we know that the slide should count as 1.5, cytic reps, like S. Harner, who I cannot believe used to be a cytotech herself, is advising labs to use the 1.4 count. Who do they listen to? the FDA guidelines or cytic? CYTIC!!!

So the fact is that Quest and other California labs do not follow the guidelines if they are aware that they exist. When I tried to explain this at my lab, I was treated like a trouble maker, so in a market where there are no jobs, and everyone else keeps their mouths closedl, I don't need to be made an example of. I was told the S. Harner gave them the guidelines. Believe it or not.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? SH is pushing this and the labs just take what she says as holy?
What a freakin' sell-out turncoat benedict arnold...insert more here_________

 

[Anonymous]

Are you serious. Of course we have quotas. The max every day or try to find another job that does not. There aren't any.

What quotas are you sure of---is this a rumor you hear or do you actually know that there are quotas still.
130? 150? DO you have a quota? are these quotas in the big labs? Are they following the new FDA guidelines or not?

Please respond!

 

[Anonymous]

Are these labs following the
.5 for imaged and
1.5 for full manual review?

 

[Anonymous]

What quotas are you sure of---is this a rumor you hear or do you actually know that there are quotas still.
130? 150? DO you have a quota? are these quotas in the big labs? Are they following the new FDA guidelines or not?

Please respond!

I do not know how else to say this any plainer:
No they are not following Fed guidelines in California and yes, there are quotas. The quotas are 80 slides if you are only doing manual screens and 1.4 for manual/imaged slides, and .4 for imaged slides, 110 imaged only slides in some labs, 130 imaged only slides, 90 slides at Westcliff because they do a combination of imaged and manually screened slides with the imaged slide counting as .4 of a manual screened slide. For example, 65 manually screened slides plus 25 imaged slides = 90 slides. S Harner told them that as long as cytotechs screen a minimum of 25 imaged slides, they could read a total of 90 slides in a manual/imaged combination.

 

[Anonymous]

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? SH is pushing this and the labs just take what she says as holy?
What a freakin' sell-out turncoat benedict arnold...insert more here_________

Oh NO. That isn't the worst. Right after she got the job as Cytyc rep, she came out to our lab and asked management when they were going to increase our quotas because with the increase in productivity that the imager provided, the lab could certainly do with less cytotechs.

I have some choice names for her. alright...

 

[Anonymous]

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? SH is pushing this and the labs just take what she says as holy?
What a freakin' sell-out turncoat benedict arnold...insert more here_________

You haven't heard the worst of it. Right after she got the job as Cytyc rep, she came out to our lab and asked management when they were going to increase our quotas because with the increase in productivity that the imager provided, the lab could certainly do with less cytotechs.

I have some choice names for her. alright...

 

[Anonymous]

cytyc is one of the most evil companies i have ever dealt with. they have a monopoly pretty much and treat their customers like sh*t. if i could do things over again, i would have went with surepath. less unsat specimens for one thing. i know the slides are harder to screen but at least the cells are on the slide and not stuck in the vial or collection device. thinprep tries to brain wash people by pointing out they have fda approval for this and that but who cares? as long as the lab validates the test, fda approval is unnecessary. every lab is doing some tests they validated. and every lab has to reprocess unsat thinpreps which is technically off the label testing.


thinprep shouldnt even be advertising that you can do an anal pap from their vial. blood clogs up the filter, imagine what a turd would do.

 

[Anonymous]

cytyc is one of the most evil companies i have ever dealt with. they have a monopoly pretty much and treat their customers like sh*t. if i could do things over again, i would have went with surepath. less unsat specimens for one thing. i know the slides are harder to screen but at least the cells are on the slide and not stuck in the vial or collection device. thinprep tries to brain wash people by pointing out they have fda approval for this and that but who cares? as long as the lab validates the test, fda approval is unnecessary. every lab is doing some tests they validated. and every lab has to reprocess unsat thinpreps which is technically off the label testing.


thinprep shouldnt even be advertising that you can do an anal pap from their vial. blood clogs up the filter, imagine what a turd would do.

Google this article title:
The Unsatisfactory ThinPrep Pap Test: Missed Opportunity for Disease Detection? Benz, MD

Read about the Unsat ThinPrep where there was Squamous Cell Carcinoma still in the vial, and the slide just had blood!

 

[Anonymous]

cytyc is one of the most evil companies i have ever dealt with. they have a monopoly pretty much and treat their customers like sh*t. if i could do things over again, i would have went with surepath. less unsat specimens for one thing. i know the slides are harder to screen but at least the cells are on the slide and not stuck in the vial or collection device. thinprep tries to brain wash people by pointing out they have fda approval for this and that but who cares? as long as the lab validates the test, fda approval is unnecessary. every lab is doing some tests they validated. and every lab has to reprocess unsat thinpreps which is technically off the label testing.


thinprep shouldnt even be advertising that you can do an anal pap from their vial. blood clogs up the filter, imagine what a turd would do.

Nice turd point!!

 

[Anonymous]

I do not know how else to say this any plainer:
No they are not following Fed guidelines in California and yes, there are quotas. The quotas are 80 slides if you are only doing manual screens and 1.4 for manual/imaged slides, and .4 for imaged slides, 110 imaged only slides in some labs, 130 imaged only slides, 90 slides at Westcliff because they do a combination of imaged and manually screened slides with the imaged slide counting as .4 of a manual screened slide. For example, 65 manually screened slides plus 25 imaged slides = 90 slides. S Harner told them that as long as cytotechs screen a minimum of 25 imaged slides, they could read a total of 90 slides in a manual/imaged combination.

So this is going on at Q in CA. IS this going on at LC too? Where the heck do they come up with 90 being okay?

 

[Anonymous]

I dont need to google that article. I deal with unsat thinpreps everyday. we reprocess a quite a few. If surepath or even monogen had come out first, no way in hell would thinprep have any marketshare. they just beat everyone to the punch. I feel sorry for the people that like backdoor sex cause I bet the anal paps are even less sensitive i bet. i think the cytyc people are full of crap and i dont believe anything they say after they lied to me about the unsat problem. they knew damn well about it but they kept blaiming physicians. i would talk to physicians about the unsats and question their technique when it was thinpreps problem all along. god i wish i had switched to surepath when i had the chance.

today is national cytotechnology day by the way

 

[Anonymous]

So this is going on at Q in CA. IS this going on at LC too? Where the heck do they come up with 90 being okay?

Your example is like this:
25 imaged/2= 12.5(if Negative)

65 + 12.5 = 77.5

That is okay in CA so can you clarify?

 

[Anonymous]

You haven't heard the worst of it. Right after she got the job as Cytyc rep, she came out to our lab and asked management when they were going to increase our quotas because with the increase in productivity that the imager provided, the lab could certainly do with less cytotechs.

I have some choice names for her. alright...

Let's add insult to injury..
Have you also had the pleasure of the notorious "trigger cell training"?

Great, lets just make up a term that stands for "the Imager can't really find the most diagnostic abnormals cells BUT there is a hint there IF you look close enough and IMAGINE..."

What a bunch of BS. Just another way to defer responsibility and blame the cytotech for the crap technology of the Imager that is hit and miss. If SH comes to my lab look out.

 

[Anonymous]

Your example is like this:
25 imaged/2= 12.5(if Negative)

65 + 12.5 = 77.5

That is okay in CA so can you clarify?

Yes, you are correct. However, they count it this way:
25 imaged X 0.4 = 10 (if negative)

65 + 10 = 75

If you have over 5 slides to manually review, you must be over calling, especially on those bad days when the tech has 6+ abnormal cases, not to mention the reactives that you must manually rescreen. Want to explain Fed Guidlines the new supervisor, S. Kim over there. Good Luck. Because S. Harner told her the .4 calculation was alright, in her mind, it must be right.

By the way, Westcliff is Labwest now, part of LabCorp.

 

[Anonymous]

Let's add insult to injury..
Have you also had the pleasure of the notorious "trigger cell training"?

Great, lets just make up a term that stands for "the Imager can't really find the most diagnostic abnormals cells BUT there is a hint there IF you look close enough and IMAGINE..."

What a bunch of BS. Just another way to defer responsibility and blame the cytotech for the crap technology of the Imager that is hit and miss. If SH comes to my lab look out.

You know that's right!!! Yes, we got the trigger cell training after we showed her a half a tray of imager missed HPV cases picked up on QC. Just flat out missed with not even reactive changes.

On one of the cases, she found an anucleate squame at a FOV and said that cell should have triggered a manual review of the whole slide. You just echoed what I said. Just another way to blame the cytotech for the limitations of their machine.

 

[Anonymous]

Your example is like this:
25 imaged/2= 12.5(if Negative)

65 + 12.5 = 77.5

That is okay in CA so can you clarify?

Yes, you are correct. The way you did it is proper and correct, but it ok only if you do not have reviews or manual rescreens of imaged slides.

However, they count it this way:

25 imaged X 0.4 = 10 (if negative)

65 + 10 = 75

If you have over 5 slides to manually review, you must be over calling, especially on those bad days when the tech has 6+ abnormal cases, not to mention the reactives that you must manually rescreen. Want to explain Fed Guidlines the new supervisor, S. Kim over there. Good Luck. Because S. Harner told her the .4 calculation was alright, in her mind, it must be right.

By the way, Westcliff is Labwest now, part of LabCorp.

 

[Anonymous]

What about Quest? Have they changed the way they count to .5 for FOV only imaged slides and 1.5 for FOV + Full Manual Reviewed slides in California?

 

[Anonymous]

Google this article title:
The Unsatisfactory ThinPrep Pap Test: Missed Opportunity for Disease Detection? Benz, MD

Read about the Unsat ThinPrep where there was Squamous Cell Carcinoma still in the vial, and the slide just had blood!

Don't need to read it because I have indeed experienced it. Thin Preps are notorious for very scant smears and finding abnormal cells on the reprocess.I recently had a case where there were only 2 hyperchromatic free nuclei on the slide. I had it reprocessed and there was serious high grade all over the reprocessed slide. Scary.

 

[Anonymous]

Don't need to read it because I have indeed experienced it. Thin Preps are notorious for very scant smears and finding abnormal cells on the reprocess.I recently had a case where there were only 2 hyperchromatic free nuclei on the slide. I had it reprocessed and there was serious high grade all over the reprocessed slide. Scary.

Ok I get you don't need to read about about because you live it.
What are you doing about it then? Anything?
Is your lab reporting it to Cytyc and the FDA? Are you reporting to anyone if they don't?

My point is why roll over and play dead and say there is nothing you can do about it???Quitter. Why don't you bring attention to these cases instead of just saying "scary".
I don't mean to be a hard ass but COME ON...THESE CASES CAN CHANGE WHAT WE BITCH ABOUT DAY IN AND DAY OUT!!! How can I express it any any other way?

 

[Anonymous]

Ok I get you don't need to read about about because you live it.
What are you doing about it then? Anything?
Is your lab reporting it to Cytyc and the FDA? Are you reporting to anyone if they don't?

My point is why roll over and play dead and say there is nothing you can do about it???Quitter. Why don't you bring attention to these cases instead of just saying "scary".
I don't mean to be a hard ass but COME ON...THESE CASES CAN CHANGE WHAT WE BITCH ABOUT DAY IN AND DAY OUT!!! How can I express it any any other way?

I am not mad at you. Point well taken. We did report the cases to Cytyc. We were told to show them to the field rep. and that she would review the cases and if warranted, these cases would help to further improve the technology. After keeping notes on these missed imaged cases, presenting them to the pathologists and to QA, nothing happened. I gave up. I used what I learned over the years to improve my personal accuracy in reading imaged slides by learning what types of cells are likely to be missed..like plaques of low grade. It has difficulty at times finding it. I think this is because it has a priority of searching out single high grade cells, and in the process misses the other cells.

I did share that information with the CAC when they were asking for feed back on the Imager in order to help craft/amend the legislation before the law that Cytyc sponsored
sunset. The initial legislation called for a period to study the Imager and any research papers were to be reviewed during this period. The amendment called for the workload limits fo each cytotech to be determined by the technical supervisor where before it was set by the manufacturer.
As far as I know, we never reported this to the FDA. However, I do know of a Cytotech who did report to this information to Karen Nichol, Chief of Laboratory Field Services. Nichol, at first seemed interested in what she had to say, but later in the conversation, she became short and annoyed with what she had to say. To make a long story short, Nichol told her that if a cytotech was overworked and tired, that was not her concern and that there was no proof that the imager was any less accurate than the cytotech.

We just figured that they were all in the pocket of Hologic and we were helpless against this corporation, especially when our own professional organizations were quiet on the issue, stating that they did not have an opinion. How many times have I gone to a CAC meeting in the past where Cytyc and SurePath were sponsors? Nearly all of the former CAC officers either worked or work for Hologic.

Everyone that I have talked to about this has had a similar experience. It is not that we don't care. We are tired. By the way, did Cytyc have you sign the same non disclosure agreement that were had to sign at our lab. In the agreement, we were not to share any information about the Imager with any other lab.