Just look at the bones!

You know what some of the most common surgeries are? Hip replacements (at least at our hospital). Old person breaks their hip, or is about to, and they need part of the joint replaced with a metal/plastic device that won't become brittle or grind bone against bone. What about the part that gets replaced? Well, it gets sent to pathology.

Femoral heads are cool in some ways, and annoying in others. For one, you can see the major load-bearing joint of the body, and from different aspects of it you can tell what problems this particular person had- osteoporosis, shaggy cartilage, bony surfaces smoothed from continuous grinding against the pelvic bone.

On the other hand, two of our three doctors insist on letting them sit in decalcifying solution for up to a week. Makes the bone soft enough to cut with a scalpel, but also makes the whole contents of the jar a smelly, greasy mess. But really, what other options do you have?

...

Hacksaw.

No, really. We have a hacksaw on hand for just such specimens, as well as a device specifically made for holding the bone in place while the sawing occurs. Given a choice between a week of nasty chemical treatment and sawing out a thin slice within a couple of minutes, I gladly choose the latter.

So yes, I can truthfully say that I have used a hacksaw on human bone. It's hard to get creepier than that on your resume, am I right? Although there was that one time where the bone was still attached to the limb... It's just that the limb wasn't attached to the person at the time.

(Bony sidenote- today we threw out a piece of maxillary bone that had been sent in a few weeks back. Teeth were very tempting, but too difficult to remove. I think I'm glad of that, actually.)