What hands-on actually means here

A lot of courses call themselves hands-on and mean a demonstration you stand behind. This is not that. Over two days, every technique on the list below is performed by you, on a real sample, and checked.

Your hands on the equipmentYou load the chamber, you make the smear, you set up the gradient, you run the spin. The technique becomes yours because you did it, badly at first, then correctly.

Real samples, including bad onesHigh viscosity. Low count. Heavy debris. Samples where the textbook method does not work cleanly, which is most of the samples that walk into a clinic.

Corrected in the momentSix people to a batch. Someone is next to you when your counting drifts or your smear is too thick, which is the only point at which it can be fixed.

You will leave able to

Set up and read a sperm counting chamber, and know why two labs disagree
Assess motility properly, across 200 sperm, and grade it consistently
Stain and read morphology under strict criteria
Tell an immotile live sperm from a dead one
Judge when sperm DNA fragmentation is worth ordering and what a raised result changes
Choose a preparation method for the sample in front of you, and run it
Look at a report from any laboratory and know what stands behind each number

What it is not

Not a lecture series with a certificate at the end
Not clinical management of male infertility. This is the laboratory
Not a product demonstration. No equipment is being sold to you
Not a large room. Six people, because more than that and nobody gets time at a scope

The two days

Day one is the analysis, performed by hand. Day two is the preparation, with the techniques run side by side so the choice becomes reasoned rather than habitual.

Day one

Analysing the sample

Everything that happens before you form an opinion. Each parameter performed by hand, then read against WHO reference values, so the report stops being a set of numbers someone else produced.

Volume, liquefaction, pH and viscosityThe part of the report nobody reads, and what it tells you about the sample you are about to assess.
Concentration and total countDilution, loading the counting chamber, and why two laboratories disagree on the same sample.
Motility, and the grades of motile spermWhat separates progressive from non-progressive in practice, assessed across 200 sperm rather than a glance.
Morphology under strict criteriaMaking the smear, staining it, and applying strict criteria consistently on real slides.
VitalityImmotile and alive, or immotile and dead. They look identical and they mean entirely different things.
Sperm DNA fragmentationWhat a normal-looking report cannot tell you, when to ask for it, and what a raised result actually changes.
Handling the difficult sampleHigh viscosity, low count, heavy debris. How the analysis changes when the sample will not behave.

Day two

Preparing the sample

Each technique run side by side on the bench, on the kind of samples that actually walk into a clinic, not the textbook ones.

Swim-upRun it yourself. What it costs you in yield, and what it buys you in quality.
Single-density gradientLayering, spinning, recovering the pellet, with the reasoning behind each step.
Double-density gradientWhere it earns its extra time, and where it does not.
Choosing the method for the sample in front of youMatching preparation to the sample rather than to habit.
Matching preparation to the procedureWhat changes when the sample is going to IUI rather than IVF or ICSI.
Handling the difficult sampleThe viscous, the low-count, the debris-heavy. Recovering something usable from a sample that fights you.

Practical details

Who it is for

Gynaecologists who read semen reports and want to know how the numbers were produced
Laboratory technicians running andrology in a clinic or hospital
Residents and embryologists early in andrology practice
Clinic teams who would rather send two people than one

What to expect

Two days, in Delhi, six people to a batch
Hands-on throughout. You perform each technique yourself
Real samples, not demonstrations you watch from the back
A certificate of completion
Teaching covers andrology laboratory practice, not clinical management

Taught by Rajnish Sehgal, over 30 years in andrology and cryopreservation, teaching it across India since 2001.

Six seats.
Batches filling fast.

Because everyone works at a scope themselves, a batch cannot be large. September is full. October is filling. Six people to a batch, in Delhi. Out-of-town participants can be helped with a place to stay nearby, just say so when you write in.

Real lab work.Not a lecture.