Karen
We did away with our 'photographer' position over 2 years ago when we
went digital. We have a video camera, with zoom lens operated by foot
control, permanently set up above our cut-up area. The video camera is
connected to a PC with video grabber board. The PC has a Mitsubishi video
printer attached. It means that our pathologists can captura a video
image (digital) in real time and print a copy of the image via the video
printer within one minute of grabbing an image at a cost of A$0.50 per
print  (images are printed on special paper and look like real
photographs). In practice very few images get printed this way they are
usually grabbed for inclusion in reports. We have an in-house network
that uses a Microsoft Word 7 template for our final histology reports. If
a colour photograph is required in the report, rather than black and
white, we use a Hewlett Packard 1120 colour inkjet printer to print the
report otherwise reports are usually printed using a Hewlett Packard
Laserjet 4000N printer. If a photograph is required elsewhere within the
Department we have an Epson Photo PC Digital camera which is capable of
capturing 16 high resolution (640x480 pixel) photographs before the
images need to be downloaded from the camera. Again images are available
for use immediatley after downloading from the camera. Takes about 10
minutes to download and save 16 images. Images are archived on to a large
hard drive then transferred to a CD once the image data base reaches
around 600MB. Images are also available for teaching, conferences and
journal articles. All of our pathologists love the system. No longer do
they have to wait for a photographer to arrive to take photographs nor do
they have to wait for film to be developed and photographs printed. And
they always get the angle they want otherwise they only have themselves
to blame! Clinicians love the colour pictures in their reports. They
system is much more efficient than our previous one and actually saves us
money.
Regards
Roy Ellis
rellis@tqehsmtp.tqeh.sa.gov.au

 ----------
From:  HistoNet[SMTP:HistoNet@Pathology.swmed.edu]
Sent:  Tuesday, 17 November 1998 10:42
To:  oshel; histoNet
Subject:  Re: No Mail? here's a new thread

Histonetters,

I've also been curious about a related issue.  Is anyone changing over to

digital archiving with image processors?  Do you think this will
eventually
happen across the field?  Will it a mean a change in basic techniques?
 For
instance, will it mean a change from chromogenic to fluorescent methods?

Just curious Karen.





Date:          Mon, 16 Nov 1998 14:23:19 -0600
From:          oshel@terracom.net (Philip Oshel)
Subject:       Re: No Mail? here's a new thread
To:            histoNet@Pathology.swmed.edu

>Is something wrong?  There is no mail!!!

Since there has been more than one "where's the mail" comment, please
allow
me to try to generate some...

Something that I've been curious about for some time is how the field of
histotechnology has changed. Specifically, what job skills were required
when someone first took a histotech job, and what are required now? Are
there skills that were essential at one time, but are now trivial? Note,
not "lost", or falsely regarded as now unimportant, but are now genuinely
unimportant. Or have the basic technology and the needed skills remained
the same, with the addition of new techniques such as all the
immunostaining methods now used.

Another way this might be asked is how have new technologies in
microscopy
(such as confocal and AFM) and computers affected histotechnology? This
may
not be a direct effect (I doubt many hospitals use AFMs in their
diagnoses), but the information gleaned by these new technologies may
have
caused changes in procedures in histotech labs. I don't know, so I ask.

Caveat: since I'm the technical editor for Microscopy Today, I'd be happy
to invite an article or more on this subject!

Phil

****be famous! send in a tech tip or question***
Philip Oshel
Technical Editor, Microscopy Today
PO Box 620068
Middleton, WI  53562
(608) 833-2885
oshel@terracom.net