Page 29 - Eclipse - RVC Alumni Magazine - Autumn 2020

Keeping pathology going through the lockdown
Like many services across the RVC, anatomic pathology was heavily disrupted at the start of the pandemic, having
to rapidly adjust working practices
to keep diagnostic pathology going safely. Like nearly all UK veterinary
post mortem examination providers, we took the decision to stop non-essential companion animal post mortems, whilst maintaining our essential farm animal service, ran by Dr Sonja Jeckel, to protect the health of livestock in essential food production. We also transitioned
to only keeping essential staff on-site – alternating critical staff working patterns to prevent cross-infection risk.
However, the interpretation of glass slides from biopsies is essential
to achieving a diagnosis for our clinicians and informing patient clinical management, having always been performed at often multiple-user microscopes on-site. We also found many of our Pathology team were now having to keep children at home due to schools and nurseries closing, and could not get onto the site. The answer was, of course, the digital slide scanner recently
acquired with the generous support of the RVC Animal Care Trust (ACT), which allows remote viewing of glass slides.
We therefore quickly put the many necessary measures and training in place to allow the team to remotely control the slide scanner and review digital slide images with colleagues by sharing via video conferencing platforms. Digital slides also have the major advantage of being easily sharable in real time with clinicians, students and scientists. Any number of features, such as surgical margins and mitotic counts, can be accurately and rapidly measured and annotated to generate quantitative data, to both inform the clinician and further our understanding of animal disease.
Going forward, the slide scanner will be critical in continuing to provide histology and histopathology training for our students. We have also scanned our clinical pathology rotation teaching cases, allowing students
to flexibly interpret haematology and cytology cases online. Throughout the pandemic, we have also continued to scan research slides, which has been
greatly appreciated by our researchers during restricted laboratory access for microscope use.
As restrictions started to lift, we recommenced companion animal post mortems. By again embracing technology, we were able to minimise staff and resident numbers in the post mortem room whilst providing remote training
for veterinary students by using a smart phone, hands-free holder and video conferencing to review post mortem findings. Through the use of the slide scanner and technology, we have been able to safely maintain our diagnostic services throughout the pandemic.
We would again like to thank the RVC ACT for generously investing in the slide scanner, which has quickly become indispensable technology. We would also like to extend a massive thank you to all the staff of the diagnostic labs and technical teams, clinical pathology team, departmental technicians, and anatomic pathology team, with special thanks to our residents Alex Chardas and Kevin O’Brien, for keeping our services going throughout this challenging time.
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