We are not a company, but rather a very large academic facility (we have a FACSTar Plus, FACSVantage Turbosort, and will have a FACSVantage Diva + another sorter in a BL3 sorting facility by spring, and we have 10 tabletops) and do both clinical and research applications. Several years ago we started a formal training program that can be customized to the users..and have provided this training to our own institution (over 200 people this year) as well as to both industry and academia (Yale, Merck, Centocor, SmithKline to name a few). We feel strongly that education is imperative to quality flow cytometry thus we focus not only on instrument operation and software use, but also on applications and practical issues of experimental design ...at the France ISAC, this was discussed and the vendors supported the idea of experts in labs providing training in addition to that offered directly by the companies with a subsidy from the vendors. All three vendors present (Coulter, BD and Cytomation agreed in principle, but nothing has been done yet..in summary, I think training can often best be provided by third parties and very often these are core facilities where education is a focus. The problem is compensation..what was suggested was that the vendors provide "scholarships" to labs (or for the trainers to come to the sites) for more detailed and customized training allowing the cores to be reimbursed for their time and effort...while we have implemented a training program available to outside users, it is limited due to the cost for many smaller labs..what about it vendors? Can we get something like this going finally??? Clearly there is a need and there should be ways to do this to benefit all involved..This certainly ties in to the thread addressing bad flow data..education is the best QC! We will have a poster at ISAC detailing our process and results...an interesting fallout of this is that for the past 10 years, our usage has consistently and steadily increased, always operating in a revenue neutral mode (even with adding staff and instruments)...education is also the best "sales tool" for the core lab (and the vendors as well!).....So how about it BD, Cytomation,Coulter...can we get something at least proposed by San Diego??? Jonni -- Jonni S. Moore, Ph.D. Associate Prof. of Path. and Lab. Med. Director of Clinical and Research Flow Cytometry University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine 203 John Morgan Bldg. Philadelphia, PA 19104-6082 Phone: 215-898-6853 FAX: 215-898-4227
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