By Chad Potts | Munday Scientific & Microscope Marketplace
This week, we sold so many refurbished Olympus BX microscopes that my head was spinning.
Most of them went to pathologists.
As I watched another microscope get cleaned, serviced, packed and prepared to head out the door, I couldn't help but think about where this industry was supposed to be headed when I got into it about 15 years ago.
Back then, the digital age was coming fast.
Slide scanners were here. Digital pathology was improving. Cameras were getting better. Computers were getting faster.
And I heard the same prediction over and over:
The microscope is going away.
Fifteen years later, I'm standing in a building full of microscopes, watching them leave about as quickly as we can get them ready.
And I think that's pretty cool.
Digital Pathology Didn't Kill the Microscope
Digital pathology is real, and it's an incredible tool.
Slide scanners have changed pathology. Remote viewing, consultation, archiving, education and image sharing are easier than ever. The technology continues to improve, and I don't think anyone working in this industry should pretend otherwise.
But something interesting happened along the way.
The microscope didn't disappear.
Pathologists kept buying them.
In our little corner of the industry, we're seeing tremendous demand for quality refurbished clinical microscopes. Many customers aren't looking for something fancy just because it's new. They want a reliable instrument with excellent optics that they can sit down behind every day and trust.
That's something I probably wouldn't have predicted 15 years ago.
There's Still Something About Glass
I've talked to a lot of pathologists over the years, and there's something that keeps coming up.
They still like looking at glass.
There's something incredibly natural about holding a slide in your hand, putting it on the stage and moving directly to the area you want to examine.
You turn the coarse focus.
Dial it in with the fine focus.
Move between objectives.
Adjust the light.
Set up proper Köhler illumination.
Move the slide with your own hands.
And look.
There's no loading a file or waiting for an image to render. Your hands, your eyes, the specimen and the microscope are all working together.
For someone who has spent years or decades looking through a microscope, that workflow becomes almost instinctive.
What Can You See Through the Microscope?
One of the things I hear from pathologists is how much they appreciate the optical detail they can see directly through a quality microscope.
There is a depth and immediacy to looking directly through good optics that can be difficult to describe until you've experienced it.
Many users tell us they feel they can appreciate subtle cellular and intracellular detail exceptionally well through the microscope. They can move around the specimen quickly, change magnification instantly and focus through different planes of the section.
That's not me saying digital pathology can't provide excellent diagnostic images. It absolutely can.
It's simply what we're hearing from people who spend their working lives looking at slides.
And I think that's an important distinction.
This doesn't have to be microscope versus digital.
They can be complementary tools.
Sometimes the Old Workflow Is Still Really Efficient
Technology usually wins when it makes something easier, faster or better.
But sometimes a tool that has been refined for generations is already incredibly efficient.
A skilled pathologist with a good microscope can move through glass slides remarkably quickly.
Pick up the slide.
Put it on the stage.
Scan.
Change magnification.
Focus.
Move.
Next slide.
There's something beautifully simple about it.
Several of our customers have told us they feel faster working this way. They like the control. They trust what they're seeing. Most importantly, they feel it helps them produce the quality of work they expect from themselves.
When someone's making important decisions based on what they're seeing, familiarity and confidence in the tool matter.
The Microscope Has Changed, Too
It's also easy to talk about microscopes as though they haven't evolved.
They have.
A good modern clinical microscope is an incredibly refined instrument. Ergonomic heads, excellent plan and apochromatic optics, LED illumination, smooth stages, precision focusing systems and high-quality objectives make today's setups comfortable and efficient.
And digital doesn't have to be excluded.
Put a quality camera on the trinocular port and suddenly the same microscope can provide traditional optical viewing while also allowing you to capture images, document findings, teach, share images and perform other digital tasks.
You don't necessarily have to choose one world or the other.
Why Refurbished Microscopes Keep Surprising Me
This is the part I find particularly interesting.
A lot of what we're selling isn't new.
It's refurbished.
We're taking professional microscope platforms that were built to last, servicing them, cleaning them, replacing or repairing what needs attention, checking the optics and getting them ready to go back into clinical use.
And people want them.
A lot of them.
A quality refurbished microscope can allow a pathologist to get into an excellent optical system while saving a significant amount compared with buying a similarly equipped new microscope.
There is also something reassuring about these systems. Many of these microscope platforms have been sitting in pathology departments for years doing exactly what they were designed to do.
They're proven.
Fifteen Years Later
When I started doing this 15 years ago, I couldn't have imagined weeks like the one we just had.
If you had told me then that slide scanners and digital pathology would continue getting better and better, but we'd also be shipping refurbished pathology microscopes out the door at this pace, I'm not sure I would have believed you.
But here we are.
Digital pathology is here.
It's going to continue growing.
Slide scanners work.
They're a great tool.
But the microscope is still here, too.
And from what we're seeing, it's doing a whole lot better than the naysayers predicted.
Maybe it's because microscopes are reliable.
Maybe it's the optical quality.
Maybe it's speed.
Maybe it's familiarity.
Or maybe there's simply something about holding that piece of glass in your hand, placing it on the stage, turning that focus knob and seeing the specimen directly with your own eyes.
For a pathologist, the microscope remains an incredible tool.
After 15 years in this business, I still get excited watching one leave our shop knowing where it's headed and what it's going to be used for.
And after the number that went out this week, I'm reminded once again:
The microscope isn't dead.
Not even close.
— Chad Potts
Munday Scientific & Microscope Marketplace
If you're considering a microscope and wondering whether a refurbished system makes sense, we're always happy to talk microscopes. Not every configuration is right for every pathologist, and sometimes the best place to start is simply figuring out what you look at, how you work and what you want from your scope.