Does your hospital buy microscopes and what is standard?

[Alteran]

Not to derail the forum from job/market or Trump threads, but I have an honest question. For those of you in a hospital based practice and where the hospital is responsible for your everyday microscopy equipment, what do they buy you and how often? I'm not so much interested in which brand they buy you, but in the type/quality of objectives and what peripherals (i.e. dual heads, cameras, etc.) do they consider standard.

Our microscopy equipment is 20+ years old and I just want to know more or less what the "standard" out there is if the hospital is buying so I know where I stand before going in with admin. Thanks so much.

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[coroner]

How dare you ask a legitimate question about anything other than job market or Trump...lol

In my group's case it varies because we cover different hospitals that are not affiliated with one another. There is no "standard" per se by the hospital, because that implies there's a person e.g. lab manager or committee who reviews what current facilities and laboratories using regionally/nationally as their respective equipment like they do for other products such as blood analyzer, chem analyzer, etc. Pathologist's microscopes generally don't fall under that umbrella.

Our contract states, "The hospital will provide the necessary equipment for the pathologists to perform their duties". This can certainly be open to interpretation, so I would check to see if your group's contract addresses this. If your equipment is malfunctioning, that's one thing: the hospital must fix or replace it. However, if you're just looking for upgraded microscopy equipment or the latest and greatest gizmo with all the bells and whistles, admin would have to approve it in their budget and their responses can vary from one place to another. For example, we did get a microscope upgrade at one of our hospitals over a year ago fairly easily because the other was ancient and this particular hospital is well off financially. On the other hand, a different hospital we cover has two solid Olympus BX-40 & BX-45's. Not quite 20 yrs. old like yours, but between 5-10 yrs. My colleague would like to get a double headed scope and admin is asking, "Why do you need it if your current scopes are working?", so the idea got scrapped.

Now, we're also trying to link up to telepathology because sometimes pathologists in our group are covering places solo or they can't sign out a case until they make it back to a certain hospital which won't be for another three days, etc. The equipment necessary for this has a better chance to get budget approval because of the benefit of Q/C, TAT, etc. The other option if your group really wants the upgrade in microscopy and the hospital is being stubborn is to pay out of your company/educational fund for which you can probably get a tax break.

 

[gbwillner]

How dare you ask a legitimate question about anything other than job market or Trump...lol

The question then is... Would Trump use Nikkon, Olympus, or Leica scopes???

 

[WEBB PINKERTON]

Trump would negotiate the best deal and the scopes would be made here in America. Put the halogen bulb workers back to work again. Who needs LED?

 

[Ishie1013]

I'm not certain there is a standard unless you're doing something that requires a superscope (immunopath).

I'm in a peripheral hospital, so my first scope had a bottle of motrin next to it because you couldn't get the eyepieces to stay in focus if your life depended on it. I pined for my residency scope. In these situations, it's helpful to ask the lab director to give you a second opinion at the double head, because they usually flip out once they realize how bad it is.

It's a whole squeaky wheel issue. We finally threw enough tantrums to get updated to decent models. I'm happy as a clam now and hopefully the scope I was using is occupying a corner of hell reserved for the people that sold out to megalabs.

If it's a good model with yearly servicing, then I don't care how shiny and new it is. I need a polarizer, clean lenses, and my beloved 2.5x objective as well as the 100x if I'm crawling around for bugs.

We only need one camera because we don't do a ton of tumor boards. There are many better things we can do with our budget than outfit everyone with a DP120. If you're in a facility where it's standard to put GI or derm images into the reports, obviously you'd need one for most people that's high tech enough not to throw too much extra time into signout. If you use it once every two weeks, well...

If you're at a main academic center, from what I've heard, one benefit is everyone gets a shiny new scope when they start out. I'm sure PP is a crapshoot. If you're in the boons of an academic facility you get the secondhand stuff. On the other hand, you also don't have to get involved in academic politics, so might be worth having to jury rig your scope for a while until you become too annoying to ignore at budget meetings.

 

[Euchromatin]

Generally agree with Ishie. The academic centers I have experience with were fairly likely to buy new hires a new scope (perhaps having a pool of residents and fellows to absorb older microscopes makes this more likely?) and give each individual pathologist their own scope camera, although I'm sure this varies. When I joined my private practice group, they dug an ancient olympus bx40 out of the back room for me, which was the same model scope I had as a senior resident and fellow. It was tolerable, although not great. Luckily (?) it died (irreparably) within about 6 months and I was upgraded to a slightly less ancient olympus bx45 (coincidentally found in a different back storage room around that time), which is a bit more ergonomic (stage slightly lower, better eyepiece angle/placement). I was also able to order a new stage for it (the old one was so scratched/worn that slides would go sharply in and out of focus at 20x or higher as you scanned around). We only have one scope with a camera for the group to share for taking tumor board pics.

 

[pathslides]

My group buys a new scope for new hires. Brand is choice between Nikon or Olympus. Plan apo objectives, camera, and dual head is standard for everyone in our group.

 

[icpshootyz]

We don't buy new scopes for new hires unless we're adding a position and have no scope for them. Otherwise you get the scope of the person who retired/left before you. I have an Olympus BX40, it works fine for all my needs.

 

[deleted314957]

Not to derail the forum from job/market or Trump threads, but I have an honest question. For those of you in a hospital based practice and where the hospital is responsible for your everyday microscopy equipment, what do they buy you and how often? I'm not so much interested in which brand they buy you, but in the type/quality of objectives and what peripherals (i.e. dual heads, cameras, etc.) do they consider standard.

Our microscopy equipment is 20+ years old and I just want to know more or less what the "standard" out there is if the hospital is buying so I know where I stand before going in with admin. Thanks so much.

Just my 2 cents but for THE MAIN TOOL that you will use for decades, unless someone else is willing, buy your own and get the very best optics and accessories.
To me, it was very important. Also, others tend to notice that you are not willing to settle for any crap someone decides is good enough for you even if you are somewhat out-of-pocket. Get what YOU want.

 

[Alteran]

Just my 2 cents but for THE MAIN TOOL that you will use for decades, unless someone else is willing, buy your own and get the very best optics and accessories.
To me, it was very important. Also, others tend to notice that you are not willing to settle for any crap someone decides is good enough for you even if you are somewhat out-of-pocket. Get what YOU want.

Totally understood. My issue is not with my personal scope at our pathologist owned private lab that handles our busy outreach business. That one is a nice BX46 with upgraded optics that I have no issue with. Rather, my issue is with our hospital based location where the equipment is about 2o years old (Nikon E400s with base achromat objectives). Allegedly, they're supposed to provide the microscopy equipment to do our jobs. But given that most hospitals are so loathe to pay for anything, including this one, I don't remain hopeful that they'll upgrade us to anything decent in the next decade. I just wanted a general sense of what is standard when other entities are buying your equipment. Thanks so much for your collective input.