Teaching medical histology at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine: Transition to virtual slides and virtual microscopes

Abstract

We describe how the histology course we teach to first-year medical students changed successfully from using glass slides and microscopes to using virtual slides and virtual microscopes. In 1988, we taught a classic medical histology course. Subsequently, students were loaned static labeled images on projection slides to introduce them to their microscope glass slides, and we made laser disks of histological images available in the teaching lab. In 2000, we placed the static labeled images and laboratory manual on the Web. We abandoned the Web-based approach in 2001. Faculty selected specific areas on microscope glass slides in student collections for scanning at a total magnification of 40, 100, 200, or 400. Christopher M. Prince of Petro Image, LLC, scanned the glass slides; digitized, encoded, and compressed (95%) the images; and placed them on CD-ROMs. The scanned images were viewed up to a magnification of 400 using the MrSID viewer (LizardTech software) and the computer as a virtual microscope. This viewer has many useful features, including effective microscope and telescope functions that provide greater versatility for sample study and speed in localizing structures than was possible with the actual microscope. Image detail is indistinguishable from that viewed under the light microscope at equivalent magnifications. Static labeled images were also placed on CD-ROMs to introduce students to the virtual slides. AN OVERVIEW OF TEACHING MEDICAL HISTOLOGY IN THE 20TH CENTURYMedical histology has been a longstanding basic science course in the medical school curriculum worldwide. Changes in histology course materials during the 20th century have reflected improvements in histological techniques and slide preparation as well as developments in light microscopes and associated photomicroscopy. Transmission and scanning electron photomicrographs were used in teaching histology during the second half of the 20th century. Changes in course content during the 20th century initially emphasized new knowledge of structure as observed at the light and electron microscope levels. Faculty members subsequently incorporated more histophysiology and histopathology into their courses to emphasize newly acquired information on the function and clinical relevance of the cells and tissues being studied. The presentation of a significant amount of cell biology also has been incorporated into textbooks and courses. Changes that were incorporated during the 1980s and 1990s have occurred at the same time as an emergence of pressures from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) and local university administrators to decompress the curriculum and reduce student-faculty contact hours in courses, including histology. At a significant number of medical schools, financial constraints have resulted recently in only partial replacement of retiring faculty, and the teaching loads of remaining faculty, therefore, have increased.During the latter part of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, there has been a rapi...

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