Many, if not most, of your readers are probably aware of the events that occurred this past year in Newport, Rhode Island, and in our GYN Cytology Program. National news coverage was extensive as events unfolded in September 1993, and again, more recently, this past month as part of the cytology expos6 on the ABC weekly show, PrimeTime Live. A fairly detailed chronology of events is also outlined in the March issue of CAP Today. 'To recount this complex situation as briefly as possible, our hospital's cytology lab, which processes approximately 10,000 Pap smears per year, was prompted by the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDH) to voluntarily cease screening Pap smears in May 1993. A public announcement of this closure was not made to avoid unnecessary hysteria in our community, which unfortunately was subsequently perceived to be a "cover-up." This decision followed the disclosure to the RIDH by the hospital's malpractice carrier that a prominent woman, who had just died of complications from metastatic carcinoma of the cervix, had four consecutive Pap smears over a seven-year period misread as normal or near normal, which in fact revealed either a high grade squamous intraepithelial lesion or outright carcinoma.A HCFA-initiated inspection of our cytology lab was then conducted by representatives of the ASCT, in late May of 1993, detailing a host of deficiencies, all of which became public record. After several months of bureaucratic delay, beyond our control, we filed a corrective report and resumed screening Pap smears with full approval by all parties. We also voluntarily started a selective "look-back'' rescreening program to attempt to identify women whose Pap smears may have been misread,
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