Published: 22nd November 2018
Blood, Sweat and Samples – Pathology explained during National Pathology Week
Staff at The Christie Pathology Partnership (CPP) celebrated National Pathology Week with a programme of events and activities reaching hundreds of thousands of Manchester residents. Activities included a visit to the children at Beaver Primary School, a TV interview and a week-long exhibition stand with pathology related activities in the outpatient foyer of The Christie Hospital.
Every activity focused on raising awareness and increasing the understanding of how pathologists and scientists diagnose disease. In addition CPP ran a week-long social media campaign, sharing facts and photos #pathologyweek.
Dr Phillip Monaghan, Consultant Clinical Scientist of CPP kicked off the week explaining the role of pathology in medicine during an interview broadcast by That’s Manchester TV. Dr Monaghan explained: “Pathology is the little-known power house behind modern medicine. It is essentially the study of disease yet few people understand the enormous and vital role it plays. When a patient undergoes a blood, urine, faeces, tissue or even saliva test, the sample invariably comes here to my team to be examined. We then share our findings with the doctors meeting the patients in the hospital.”
Click here to see Dr Phillip Monaghan’s interview.
Throughout the week various CPP staff manned an exhibition stand in the Oak Road Outpatients foyer of The Christie Hospital, talking to people about pathology and engaging them in science-based activities and competitions. As they waited for appointments, members of the public and patients could guess how many samples were in the jar, carry out a diabetes check using glucometers and sugar solutions and guess how many red blood cells in a unit of blood, just to name a few of the activities.
The ‘Cut-Up Live’ competition winners from Manchester Metropolitan University Biomedical Sciences course attended a fascinating dissection demonstration by Dr Pedro Oliveira, Consultant Histopathologist.
Dr Lisa Coulthwaite, Principal Lecturer and MSc Biomedical Science Programme Leader at The School of Healthcare Science at Manchester Metropolitan University stated: “We are really pleased with the success of this visit and the fantastic feedback from students. This insight really highlighted the importance of effective multi-professional team working, and of continuing professional development to maintain currency of training in an ever-changing pathology landscape. Many thanks to everyone involved.”
Dr Monaghan also gave a Blood Sciences lecture at a national ‘Leaders in Diagnostics’ (LiD) Conference in London, attended by 600 delegates from the diagnostics sector as part of the LiD Cancer Track.
James Edgington, Senior Biomedical Scientist in Biochemistry and Tahmina Hussain, Specialist Biomedical Scientist in Haematology and Transfusion, from CPP gave a talk to pupils at the Beaver Road Primary School, Manchester. The children learned all about the ‘Secrets of the Lab.’ Tahmina Hussain explained: “Over 120 children listened avidly to our presentation about our role as secret superheroes, helping diagnose disease. They learned about the journey of a blood sample, how the red blood cells and plasma are separated and examined before the results are fed-back to the doctor who speaks to the patient. There were a lot of questions, even a request or two about whether it pays well.”
And finally, Biomedical Scientist Kathryn Cassey won the pathology themed charity bake off with her amazing ‘bag of blood’ cake. The team then sold all the cakes in the competition raising £110 for The Christie Charity.
Key facts:
- 70% of clinical decisions rely on the result of a pathology test.
- The Christie Pathology Partnership (CPP) is a joint venture between The Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester and SYNLAB.
- The Christie is the largest single-site cancer centre in Europe, treating more than 44,000 patients a year and is an international leader in cancer treatment and research.
- The partnership uses the very latest technologies, working methods and diagnostic techniques to help deliver improved outcomes for its patients. CPP is one of the UK’s leading reference centres specialising in cancer detection and treatment.
- SYNLAB is the market leader in clinical laboratory services in Europe, offering reliable and local laboratory services in more than 40 countries, and undertakes more than 500 million clinical tests annually.
To find out more about The Christie Pathology Partnership please contact [email protected] or call 07734 907592.
