Posted By Francis Quinn Is there anyway that they can "rotate"- i.e do some slide preparation, microscope, filing, microscope, slide prep, microscope etc.?

Posted By Mark Preston Regular breaks away from the bench are essential - stretching and using different muscle sets. We require breaks in law for DSE work - microscope work leads to a more static posture - usually with head tilted forward - and a greater potential for back, neck and shoulder injury. You might try and seek out better ergonomic designs - unfortunately, everyone these days claims their design is the ergonomic bee's knees - but some are definitely better than others e.g. the Nikon eclipse range has one hand focus/stage control (nice), low stage (good) and tiltable binocular eyepieces (great - the equivalent to the tiltable, height adjustable display screen and about time too). Focus (pardon pun) not just on the instrument but on the workstation - eg many of the lab benches I've worked at are higher than they need to be for this work and have no or restricted leg room. simple and cheap but highly effective - and I speak from the heart - fit high eyepoint eyepieces and soft rubber eyecups - long periods staring down a mic discerning fine details and counting them can very occasionally lead one to nod off - it helps if your eyes and eyesockets have a soft landing. Finally, I'd say that for your application, accuracy would be critical. The longer you're at the microscope - the higher your productivity, and the greater the risk of fatigue and inaccuracy - I'm a (resting) microscopist - there has never been a time in my life when I'd have been able to work >8 hours a day at the microscope and maintained my level of accuracy.