Get a yearnin' for learnin.

"The illiterate of the 21st century" warned Writer and Futurist Alvin Toffler, "will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." So, we are on our way this month to learn, unlearn, and relearn at AACC's exhibit hall and its workshops in Washington, DC, having just visited the Executive War College for a three-day wingding on laboratory mergers and acquisitions.

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AACC surely will reinforce Toffler's notion when it welcomes thousands of registrants to its annual meeting and expo. The companies that display their goods at the various exhibits throughout the year are hotbeds of both fantastical imagination and unparalleled skill. This year, some 1,893 AACC booths will be filled with the products and services from 646 exhibitors. From A to Z--Aesku Diagnostics (Germany) to ZheJiang U-Real Medical Technology Company Ltd. (China)--there is much to behold.

The confident, mellow pace of the medical lab of years past has given way to an unsettling kaleidoscope of new technology in the industry that has challenged seasoned lab techs to learn, unlearn, and relearn. The broad scope of change that they are facing in the lab just as their retirement beckons will be the standard as the tech-savvy, "newly minted" laboratorians move into place over the next 10 years.

To some, all this newfangled invention looks like Huxley's "brave new world" come alive. To others, automation and its attendant machinery is an intriguing puzzle to solve. For all of us, it appears there is no turning back at this point. Ten years from now, most of today's new products will have lab techs wondering how they have managed to continue using that old 2008 analyzer, centrifuge, refrigeration unit, pipette, or syringe, all of which were outdated within a short period of time.

Recently, I was re-reading an MLO article from May 2005 ("Ten instruments that changed the lab" by Roy Midyett, page 30) as inspiration for an upcoming feature on the "Top 10 technologies that could revolutionize clinical testing." One of the instruments Roy Midyett saluted in his reminiscence was the 1957 autoanalyzer by Technicon, which mixed "a sample and reagents into a long tube, with the sample separated by an air bubble then traveling through an incubator, dialyzer, and photometer. ... colored fluid and bubbles in tubes rivaled lava lamps for entertainment value." Lava lamps ... oh, yes, we remember those.

Another of Roy's favorites was the Coulter Counter Model S introduced in 1958, 50 years ago: "It was even in a movie, Omega Man with Charlton Heston, but how Chuck got usable results with all six lights on in one scene is beyond me. Oh, well, he was the Omega Man. Other non-features were no computer (it was added later), no control files, no laser printer, and definitely no autosampler." That hardly seems believable today.

But I digress ... it struck me that, by the time I figure out what those revolution ary Top 10 technologies are and write the feature, there might be a totally different revolutionary Top 10 by the time it gets published! That is how fast it feels we are moving. The upshot of this disquisition is that if we thought it was tough to keep up yesterday, tomorrow may be a greater trial. But as Henry Ford once said: "Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80." I take that to mean that Henry discovered that learning is the true Fountain of Youth.

So, cheers to each of you! May your cup of learning, unlearning, and relearning runneth over. And remember, "Age should not have its face lifted, but it should rather teach the world to admire wrinkles as the etchings of experience and the firm line of character."*

cbersch@nelsonpub. com