The thought of graduate students running major instruments is a bit worrying.
They usually are interested in their own work and don't have time to be on
call for other needs. In our department grad students teach labs for many of
our courses, but major instruments tend to be part of major labs which are run
by permanent staff members. Here at the University of Victoria the EM's, the
sputter coaters and ultra microtomes are part of the EM lab which has a
permanent staff member and the Zeiss LSM 410, image processing and analysis
computers, large optical photomicroscopes and photomacroscopes (as well as the
traditional darkrooms) are all part of the Biological Imaging Lab which I run.
Both the EM and Photo lab staff have many years of training and experience and
we not only run the labs, we instruct faculty, staff and students, we develop
long term plans, develop budgets and ensure that the labs stay up to date. I
cannot see this working with the turn over of grad students.
 
            tom gore, bioimaging laboratory, university of victoria
                     box 1700, victoria b.c. v8w 2y2, canada
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