Hi,
    I just left a lab in which some techs were cutting between up to 300 blocks
in a day. That is 300 blocks with two slides on each. Often they would be doing
other tasks before and after this too. While this I am sure is an extreme, I
think 50 slides per day is not too much to ask most techs. Not to be a "slave
driver" but 50 slides could be done in a little over an hour depending on the
tissue, even less if multiple slides are being prepared from the same block. I
think 50 could be a good standard minimum.

now get back to work
Amos Brooks
<<snapping whip>>

"Ford, Judi {Path~Palo Alto}" wrote:

> Hi there:
>  I have a question concerning the NSH guidelines for the workload per tech
> per day.  According to Mary's message NSH suggests 1 tech per 50 slides per
> day.  Does this take in to account for all the other work done in the lab?
> I come from a research lab where we cut about 30 slides/tech/day along with
> gross-in, embedding, machine maintenance, staining, data entry, labelling
> cassettes/slides
> (we've automated this process), archiving samples, preparing studies for
> contract labs, etc.  Each of the techs does everything in our lab.  All of
> us have had/or currently have repetitive motion injuries and don't generally
> have breaks during the day, even though we're encouraged to. If we increased
> our workload up to 50 slides/day/tech I think we'd be here 7 days a week all
> night long (maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but it feels that way sometimes).
> If the NSH guidelines do take into account everything done in a lab, then
> we'll never be able to justify another position in our lab.  I'd love to
> hear what others think.
>
> Judi
> Palo Alto, CA