For new professionals entering the field of histology, the days of making reagents are quickly becoming a thing of the past. I find this shift may be problematic, primarily because some of the art that is characteristically histology is lost. One of my personal challenges when working with students is helping them to troubleshoot staining anomalies. When stains are made by the laboratory, the team learns from hands on experience what happens when a component is missing or inappropriately added to the mixture. These changes can make subtle alterations in the stained slides, which the histology team is ultimately expected to correct. Ultimately, the bottom line of the problem is if newer histology teams can troubleshoot the subtle changes that can be easily corrected, without having the experience of making reagents and the lessons learned in that process.
