[Histonet] number of blocks sectioned per hour

[Elizabeth Chlipala]

I'm going to chime in here and also agree that quality over quantity is the way I want the work done here.  We do not have any time standards for embedding or sectioning, our projects are too diverse.  If you think about overall time management and the amount of additional time it will take to recut and restain a poorly prepared slide you are going to be better off spending a bit more time sectioning in order to obtain a quality section.  In a research histology lab its sometimes not as simple as trimming into a block to get the full face of tissue it can be much more complex than that.  Rough trimming the blocks takes us much more time than sectioning in many instances.  We have microscopes next to each microtome so the techs can check where they are in the block prior to capturing a section on a slide.  Overall this saves us on time because we don't have to recut a sample because we are not at the correct part of the tissue.  I can't imagine sectioning mouse knees (we need to be at the center of the joint when we collect sections) or rat and mouse eyes (with the optic nerve head present) without a microscope next to my microtome.  Before we had microscopes next to the microtomes it would take us days of additional recuts just to make sure we were at the correct part of the tissue we were sectioning, we may spend some additional time up front when we rough trim but its saves us much more time in the long run and we end up with better quality overall.

Just my two cents, whatever that is worth??

Liz

Elizabeth A. Chlipala, BS, HTL(ASCP)QIHC
Manager
Premier Laboratory, LLC
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