[Histonet] Are we 49,000 strong?

[Rene J Buesa]

Dear Histonet subscriber:
  A week ago I asked your opinion about being 49,000 strong. Following is a summary of 17 answers that included some quatification; the other respondents just said: "I don't know!" or "I think we will never know!".
   
  A- We are LESS than 49k (1 answer) because many hospitals in Texas send their cases to an independent lab. Extrapolating the Texas case to the whole nation, we could be 39,000
  B- Probably WE ARE 49k (4 answers) although all accepted 49k as a possible figure, they all said it was a "big guess" and that we "will never know". 
   
  C- We are MORE than 49k ( 12 answers). They thnk we are MORE than 49k because I did NOT include in my initial calculations many places doing histology work like: government institutions, pharmaceutical companies, private contract labs, large reference labs, biotechnology companies, temporary employment agencies, microscopy facilities, museums, zoological gardens, aquaria and marine research labs and military labs that have a histologist job category and a med. tech category trained to do histology work. Even the fact that Mohs techs (that do FS and H&E on a regular basis and that consider themselves as histotechs) were not included when they should be.
  Those colleagues offered levels of more than 50k, probably 58k, around 60k or between 60k and 70k
   
  Although the 49k initial number came from some actual figures (histology labs within known numbers of hospitals and average numbers of HT per lab) it is a "guestimate", in the same way that "considering" we are more or less are also speculative opinions, "gut feelings" without supporting "hard evidence".
   
  Nevertheless, there are so many places nationwide that do some sort of histology work, Histonet has so many subscribers seeking answers to histology problems that I do not think it would be too farfetched to say that we may be between 39,000 and 58,000 (the later being the average from 50k, 58k, 60k and 65k pointed out as possible maximum levels).
   
  Are we 49,000 strong? We may be between 39,000 and 58,000 (average of 49,000) strong!
   
  René J.



 		
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