The pathologist who first flagged problems at Eastern Health did his best to train lab technologists, the Cameron inquiry heard Wednesday.

The public inquiry, which has been hearing testimony since March, is investigating why hundreds of breast cancer patients received inaccurate treatment test results.

The inquiry has heard that lab technologists who prepared breast tissue for hormone receptor tests never received formal procedural training.

Lab technologist Ken Green took the stand and told the inquiry that Dr. Gerson Ejeckam was dedicated to training the technologists himself and making the lab more efficient.

"He always wanted us to do better, and he told us that that we could be the best," Green said of Ejeckam.

The inquiry has heard that Ejeckam identified key problems with overworked and under-resourced staff at the lab in 2003.

He wrote a memo that year that has been referred to frequently at the Cameron inquiry, outlining a wide array of problems in the pathology lab.

Green said Ejeckam gave lectures to the lab technologists and provided a training manual for them. Ejeckam also gave the technologists time to practice comparing healthy breast tissue samples with cancerous ones.

Green said Ejeckam had a vision for a top-notch lab, but became frustrated after changes at Eastern Health didn't come fast enough.

"He had a particular vision in line for the laboratory... he wanted a separate space, he wanted dedicated technologists, full-time, and when things didn't move fast enough for him, he would be upset," Green said.

Ejeckam testified at the inquiry in June. At the time he said the pathology lab in St. John's had long been hampered by the amount of work that too few pathologists had been required to do.

"If you have to look at too many slides in a day, you get a headache and your eyes get blurry, and then your concentration is impaired, and that's a possibility of much error in that situation," he told Justice Margaret Cameron, who is heading the inquiry.

Ejeckam left Eastern Health in 2006, but Green said Ejeckam's tradition of training seminars among the lab technologists continues to this day.