This year’s MICRA annual educational conference was held on October 22-23rd in Lansing ,MI hosted by McLaren Greater Lansing. In attendance were Project and Quality Control Manager, Janet Raleigh-BS, RHIA, CTR and Vice President of Quality Control, Education, and Training, Cari Vida- BS, RHIA, CTR who was gracious enough to give us a recap of her time at the conference.
“It was a beautiful drive into southern MI as the leaves are starting to turn their colors. Over 100 attendees celebrated the 40th conference. The organization put together a cook book for the members with recipes submitted by the members. It was a great way to share our favorite cooking tips, meals and treats.
Speaking of great food, the conference offered morning yogurt parfaits which were a huge hit as well as mid-day make your own trail mix snack bags. My compliments to the planners of this meeting!
The conference contained informative presentations and lively speakers. As we continue our pathway back to AJCC staging as well as SEER Summary Staging, Patrick Nicolin’s presentation reminded everyone SEER Summary is a combination of both clinical and pathologic documentation about the extent of disease and the importance of READING the Schema notes.
For example,
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- For all Colon subsites a nodule in pericolic fat falls under code 3 for Regional lymph nodes involved.
- Lung Schema, Note 4: assume pleural effusion is negative if a resection is done.
- Prostate Schema, Note 1: involvement of the prostatic urethra does not alter the SEER Summary Stage code.
- Prostate Schema, code 2 Regional by direct extension: includes no extracapsular extension, but margins involved.
- Hodgkin and Non-Hodgkin Lymphomas of All Sites: the general instructions state any mention of lymph nodes is indicative of involvement.
- Terms such as palpable lymph node in left axilla should be ignored and not considered involvement per the general instructions.
- Terms such as enlarged or lymphadenopathy should be ignored for all sites except lung per the general instructions.
It was nice to see all attendees whether known colleagues or new CTRs to the organization and I look forward to next year’s conference. Congratulations to Betty Curry (seen below) as the winner of the Registry Partners Visa gift card!”