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

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Philip Oshel
Technical Editor, Microscopy Today
PO Box 620068
Middleton, WI  53562
(608) 833-2885
oshel@terracom.net