HTL 511 – ORIENTATION
- Didactic – Lecture includes a review of ethics and professionalism, statistics, quality assurance in the clinical laboratory and statistical approaches to data evaluation. Safety in the hospital/laboratory is also included. One credit hour.
HTL 502 and 507 – FIXATION
- Didactic – Lecture includes identification of multiple tissue types, anatomy, fixation of tissues, types of fixatives, action of major single and combination fixatives, special fixatives, factors affecting the quality of fixation, fixation for selected individual tissues, incompatible stains and fixatives, useful formulas for fixatives, and dehydrant cross-linking fixatives. Two credit hours.
- Practicum – Laboratory instruction in all current histologic fixation techniques with clinical correlation, QC and computer operation. One credit hour.
HTL 503 and 508 HTL – PROCESSING/EMBEDDING
- Didactic – Lecture includes gross room/surgical cut-up, specimen dissection plans, tissue processing and microarray, dehydration, clearing, infiltrating and embedding reagents, automated tissue processing, manual tissue processing, tissue microarray including purpose, advantages, types, grid design, donor block, needles, arrays, smoothing, sectioning, troubleshooting and maintenance. Two credit hours.
- Practicum – Laboratory instruction on specimen dissection, different tissues, microarray, automated tissue processing, troubleshooting and maintenance to include all techniques utilized in processing and embedding. Three credit hours.
HTL 504 and 509 – MICROTOMY
- Didactic – Lecture includes basic principles of microtomy applicable to both paraffin and frozen sections and techniques necessary to provide quality microscopic slides for clinical and research histology. Topics include types of microtomes, paraffin section cutting, frozen and related sections, uses of frozen sections, cryostat sectioning, freeze drying and freeze substitution, frozen section substitution and plastic embedding for light microscopy. Two credit hours.
- Practicum – Laboratory instruction on principles of microtomy applicable to both paraffin and frozen sections and techniques necessary to provide quality microscope slides for clinical and research histology. Six credit hours.
HTL 505 and 510 - STAINING
- Didactic – Lecture includes theory of staining, properties of dyes, problems/troubleshooting, hematoxylins and eosin, alum hematoxylin, routine staining, iron hematoxylin, tungsten hematoxylin, molybdenum hematoxylin, lead hematoxylin, QC in routine H & E Staining. Additional topics include stains for connective and mesenchymal tissues, carbohydrates, pigments and minerals (endogenous and exogenous). Amyloid techniques, microorganism detection and identification, bone (normal cells, processing decalcified bone, staining etc.), and techniques are covered in neuropathology (normal nervous system, staining neurons, immunohistochemistry of neurons, the neuroglia, clinical correlation). Additional topics include immunofluorescent techniques, immunochemistry, QC, molecular pathology, transmission electron microscopy and quantitative data from microscopic specimens. Six credit hours.
- Practicum – Laboratory instruction on staining, properties of dyes, troubleshooting staining, H & E plus special stains, clinical correlation, techniques in immunofluorescence, immunochemistry, QC, electron microscopy, and quantitative data from microscopic specimens. Solving problems with staining will be addressed with both identification and potential resolution. Five credit hours.
MT 408 – CLINICAL LABORATORY SUPERVISION AND MANAGEMENT
- Didactic – Lecture instruction on performance improvement, critical pathways, human resource management, financial management, management styles, team building skills, dynamics of health care and laboratory, communications, ethics, selection of lab computer systems and government regulations and standards. One credit hour.
MT 409 – EDUCATION AND RESEARCH METHODS AND DESIGN
- Didactic– Lecture instruction on writing behavioral objectives; teach methods; forms of evaluation and motivation of student; research design; and basic principles of evaluating a research paper. One credit hour.
Student Lab Description
The Student Lab at the Sentara RMH School of Histotechnology will be an on-site student lab. Daily, the students will practice histology skills. The student lab will correlate with and reinforce didactic lectures. They will understand on a practical level the theory of fixation, microtomy and embedding procedures and the importance of proper processing and staining. Not only will they learn and reproduce proper techniques and procedures, but they will be exposed to predetermined errors and failures to follow procedure, or unpredicted events, and thus learn to troubleshoot and problem-solve.