The Use of Screencasts with Embedded Whole-Slide Scans and Hyperlinks to Teach Anatomic Pathology in a Supervised Digital Environment

Abstract

Background:There is an increasing interest in using digitized whole-slide imaging (WSI) for routine surgical pathology diagnoses. Screencasts are digital recordings of computer screen output with advanced interactive features that allow for the preparation of videos. Screencasts that include hyperlinks to WSIs could help teach pathology residents how to become familiar with technologies that they are likely to use in their future career.Materials and Methods:Twenty screencasts were prepared with Camtasia 2.0 software (TechSmith, Okemos, MI, USA). They included clinical history, videos of chest X-rays and/or chest computed tomography images, links to WSI digitized with an Aperio Turbo AT scanner (Leica Biosystems, Buffalo Grove, IL, USA), pre- and posttests, and faculty-narrated videos of the WSI in a manner closely resembling a slide seminar and other educational materials. Screencasts were saved in a hospital network, Screencast.com, YouTube.com, and Vimeo.com. The screencasts were viewed by 12 pathology residents and fellows who made diagnoses, answered the quizzes, and took a survey with questions designed to evaluate their perception of the quality of this technology. Quiz results were automatically e-mailed to faculty. Pre- and posttest results were compared using a paired t-test.Results:Screencasts can be viewed with Windows PC and Mac operating systems and mobile devices; only videos saved in our network and screencast.com could be used to generate quizzes. Participants’ feedback was very favorable with average scores ranging from 4.5 to 4.8 (on a scale of 5). Mean posttest scores (87.0% [±21.6%]) were significantly improved over those in the pretest quizzes (48.5% [±31.2%]) (P < 0.0001).Conclusion:Screencasts with WSI that allow residents and fellows to diagnose cases using digital microscopy may prove to be a useful technology to enhance the pathology education. Future studies with larger numbers of screencasts and participants are needed to optimize various teaching strategies.

Future of Education or Present Reality?

“…After scanning and deidentifying slides, the images were uploaded to the Pathpresenter website (https://pathpresenter.net). 2 The Pathpresenter has an option to create online links for easy access of the images.…”

“…1 For the additional benefit of our trainees, we scanned the glass slide cases for unknown conferences and uploaded the images into Pathpresenter website (https://pathpresenter.net/; accessed April 23, 2020). 2 After scanning, the online links made for convenient access to slide images before the Cisco WebEx conferences. We knew that the whole slide scanning was previously used in pathology education, so we decided to use the same approach.…”

The Roles of Video in Online Learning

“…Students gain a better understanding by becoming familiar with the technology by watching screencasts that link to WSIs. One of the recording software commonly used is Camtasia which callows real-time screen grabs and is best for teaching captures all onscreen activities and the audio which makes the e-learning simulation accessible to many users [27].…”

Understanding and Explaining Diagnostic Paths: Toward Augmented Decision Making

“…Pathologists' Education: Based on the example of screen-casts, Wong et al [12] described that digital pathology offers many possibilities to enhance pathology trainees' education. According to the feedback from pathologists, the proposed method of visualizing the diagnostic process would be very useful in education of pathology trainees: On the one hand, a visualization as described in our work will be beneficial for pathologists in training as it allows them to interactively follow pathologists with specialty expertise through the decision making and diagnosis process and learn from their experience.…”