Dana Hartwell

I've been working in the histology field for roughly 5 years now. I started my career in 2021 at Ameripath, which is a Quest Diagnostics company that does general pathology, DermPath, and pretty much everything, outsourcing from surrounding hospitals. I began there as a trainee and completed their trainee program, then decided to sit for the histotechnologist ASCP Board of Certification exam, which I passed to become officially certified. While working full-time at Ameripath, I also went back to school full-time and earned my MBA in healthcare management through Western Governors University, which I completed in 2024 in roughly 7 to 8 months. I've been with Dawes Fretzen for nearly 2 years now (as of July 2026). Dawes Fretzen is more focused than my previous role because they do DermPath specifically, working with skin biopsies, whereas at Ameripath I was seeing just about everything in surgery. My main areas of expertise are histology and immunohistochemistry altogether, focusing on diagnostics of all sorts. In my current role, I work with two surgeons daily who have full schedules, and we see roughly 30 surgeries a day that we process in real time while the patient is left open, making sure that the margins of skin cancer removal are clear. I process the tissue, put it on a slide, and stain it so the surgeon can look at it and verify the margins are clear. If they aren't clear, the surgeon goes back and takes another layer, and we repeat the process until all the skin cancer is gone. We also handle the permanence side, processing any biopsies taken by our PAs or doctors upstairs to rule out basal cell, squamous cell, melanoma, or other conditions.