The Importance of a Pap Test

   The Papanicolaou test (also called Pap smear, Pap test, cervical smear, or smear test) is a screening test used in gynecology to detect premalignant and malignant (cancerous) processes in the ectocervix. Significant changes can be treated, thus preventing cervical cancer. The cervix is the lower part of the uterus (womb) that opens at the top of the vagina.

How the Test is Performed

The Pap smear is done as part of a gynecological exam. You will lie on a table and place your feet in stirrups to position your pelvis for examination. The health care provider will insert an instrument (speculum) into your vagina and open it slightly to see inside the vaginal canal.
The health care provider will take a sample of cells from the outside and just inside the opening of the cervix (cervical canal) by gently scraping the outside of the cervix with a wooden or plastic spatula, then inserting a small brush that looks like a pipe cleaner into the canal.
The cells are placed on a glass slide, or put in a bottle containing a preservative, and then sent to the lab for examination.
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Whiz-kid invents Surgical Technique Used in Hysterectomies

• 14 Year Old Tony Hansberry makes Medical History

nJacksonville, Fla -Tony Hansberry II is just 14 years old, but the precocious student has the medical profession buzzing. Hansberry, who attends Darnell-Cookman Middle/High School in Jacksonville, Florida, the first magnet school for medicine in the country, has discovered a new way to suture patients undergoing hysterectomies. 

 Challenged to improve a procedure called the endo stitch used in hysterectomies that could not be clamped down properly to close the tube where the patient’s uterus had been, Hansberry devised a vertical way to apply the endo stitch that simplifies the procedure and reduces the risk of complication.