Shifting gears higher - digital slides in graduate education - 4 years experience at Semmelweis University

Abstract

BackgroundThe spreading of whole slide imaging or digital slide systems in pathology as an innovative technique seems to be unstoppable. Successful introduction of digital slides in education has played a crucial role to reach this level of acceptance. Practically speaking there is no university institute where digital materials are not built into pathology education. At the 1st. Department of Pathology and Experimental Cancer Research, Semmelweis University optical microscopes have been replaced and for four years only digital slides have been used in education. The aim of this paper is to summarize our experiences gathered with the installation of a fully digitized histology lab for graduate education.MethodsWe have installed a digital histology lab with 40 PCs, two slide servers - one for internal use and one with external internet access. We have digitized hundreds of slides and after 4 years we use a set of 126 slides during the pathology course. A Student satisfaction questionnaire and a Tutor satisfaction questionnaire have been designed, both to be completed voluntarily to have feed back from the users. The page load statistics of the external slide server were evaluated.ResultsThe digital histology lab served ~900 students and ~1600 hours of histology practice. The questionnaires revealed high satisfaction with digital slides. The results also emphasize the importance of the tutors' attitude towards digital microscopy as a factor influencing the students' satisfaction. The constantly growing number of page downloads from the external server confirms this satisfaction and the acceptance of digital slides.ConclusionsWe are confident, and have showed as well, that digital slides have got numerous advantages over optical slides and are more suitable in education.

Meta-analysis and review of learner performance and preference: virtual versus optical microscopy

“…Kumar et al, 43 Krippendorf & Lough, 52 Boutonnat et al, 66 Glatz-Krieger et al, 67 Kumar et al, 68 Mills et al, 53 Neel et al, 7 Scoville & Buskirk, 11 Braun & Kearns, 15 Farah & Maybury, 6 Weaker & Herbert, 47 Maybury & Farah, 44 Sivamalai et al, 38 Camparo et al, 5 Bonser et al, 64 Bowa & Anderson, 65 Kogan et al 51 Slides selected for their educational quality can be viewed by multiple students simultaneously (including slides that were once too scarce or too valuable to be used) Blake et al, 46 Dee et al, 70 Kumar et al, 43 Krippendorf & Lough, 52 Boutonnat et al, 66 Glatz-Krieger et al, 67 Mills et al, 53 Pinder et al, 10 Farah & Maybury, 6 Husmann et al, 8 Weaker & Herbert, 47 F onyad et al, 50 Fontelo et al, 69 Solberg, 54 Bonser et al, 64 Kogan et al 51 Virtual slides can be accessed outside the classroom (anytime/anywhere) Dee et al, 70 Kumar et al, 43 Mills et al, 53 Pinder et al, 10 Farah & Maybury, 6 Maybury & Farah, 44 Sivamalai et al, 38 McCready & Jham, 71 Kogan et al, 51 Tian et al…”

Learning pathology using collaborative vs. individual annotation of whole slide images: a mixed methods trial

“…This finding was expected as collaborative WSI annotation was designed to increase student engagement, which is positively correlated with perceptions of improved understanding [3–5, 7, 8, 12, 38, 41, 47, 48]. …”

“…It has been demonstrated that students access VM materials throughout the day [6]. Additionally, VM may also enhance students’ learning [7, 8]. However, it is worth noting that VM can be expensive to set up and is prone to technical difficulties [1–4, 8–10].…”

“…As students view identical tissue sections using VM, the risk of variability in learning materials is eliminated [1, 2, 4, 8, 11–13]. However, this may promote the tendency for students to undervalue the importance/existence of variation in tissue sections [14].…”

“…annotations [3–6, 8, 12, 21]. Such annotations may enhance learning by promoting longer and more meaningful interactions between students and learning resources [21].…”