10
1. LABORATORY ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT
1.5. Technical Help
It is not usually possible to rely heavily on technical help in an electron
microscope laboratory. There are certain routine tasks that can be
delegated but, in general, these are not the serious bottlenecks. The timeconsuming operation is the analysis of the material by the responsible
investigator, and there is no substitute for hours of personal time at the
microscope. The responsible investigator will select the fields to be
photographed and do that himself.
He may train a technician to cut and mount sections. However, this
is apt to prove frustrating for a variety of reasons. Much time can be
wasted at the microscope if the specimen grids are not well covered with
excellent material. In this author's experience it is often maddening to
try to work with somebody else's material. One has the feeling that he can
do better himself, and gets impossibly irritated by too many blank
squares, folds in the sections, dirt sprinkled over the surface, "chatter/*
unsuitable thickness, poor preservation, etc. If the responsible investigator has himself prepared the specimen from the beginning, he has no
one to blame but himself for the various flaws which appear so commonly under the best of circumstances. He presumably profits by his
experience, but it is difficult indeed to put up with someone else's errors
and carelessness. Then, too, there is little chance of obtaining a qualified
technician without training him or her in the first place, which is sure to
be a time-consuming process and one without assurance of success or
promise of permanence. It thus seems best that any investigator in this
field be prepared to preserve his own material, section and mount it, and
do his own microscopy. The technician is left with certain secondary
tasks in accordance with his or her skills. These can include photographic
printing and some microscope maintenance, as well as the more prosaic
animal care, solution making, bottle washing, and laboratory clean-up.
1.6. Shared Facilities
How many people can or should share the use of a microscope? If the
laboratory is entirely concerned with tissue work, there cannot be very
many people working actively at the same time without extraordinary
inconvenience. It is not unreasonable for an investigator to spend about
one third of his actual working time at the microscope. The other two
thirds will be spent in specimen preparation, photographic enlarging,
1. LABORATORY ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT
1.5. Technical Help
It is not usually possible to rely heavily on technical help in an electron
microscope laboratory. There are certain routine tasks that can be
delegated but, in general, these are not the serious bottlenecks. The timeconsuming operation is the analysis of the material by the responsible
investigator, and there is no substitute for hours of personal time at the
microscope. The responsible investigator will select the fields to be
photographed and do that himself.
He may train a technician to cut and mount sections. However, this
is apt to prove frustrating for a variety of reasons. Much time can be
wasted at the microscope if the specimen grids are not well covered with
excellent material. In this author's experience it is often maddening to
try to work with somebody else's material. One has the feeling that he can
do better himself, and gets impossibly irritated by too many blank
squares, folds in the sections, dirt sprinkled over the surface, "chatter/*
unsuitable thickness, poor preservation, etc. If the responsible investigator has himself prepared the specimen from the beginning, he has no
one to blame but himself for the various flaws which appear so commonly under the best of circumstances. He presumably profits by his
experience, but it is difficult indeed to put up with someone else's errors
and carelessness. Then, too, there is little chance of obtaining a qualified
technician without training him or her in the first place, which is sure to
be a time-consuming process and one without assurance of success or
promise of permanence. It thus seems best that any investigator in this
field be prepared to preserve his own material, section and mount it, and
do his own microscopy. The technician is left with certain secondary
tasks in accordance with his or her skills. These can include photographic
printing and some microscope maintenance, as well as the more prosaic
animal care, solution making, bottle washing, and laboratory clean-up.
1.6. Shared Facilities
How many people can or should share the use of a microscope? If the
laboratory is entirely concerned with tissue work, there cannot be very
many people working actively at the same time without extraordinary
inconvenience. It is not unreasonable for an investigator to spend about
one third of his actual working time at the microscope. The other two
thirds will be spent in specimen preparation, photographic enlarging,