Virtual Microscopy Tagging and Its Benefits for Students, Faculty, and Interprofessional Programs Alike

Abstract

BackgroundOver the years, due to technological innovations in medical education, virtual microscopy has become a popular tool used to teach histology. The Virtual Microscopy Project is a faculty and student collaborative project at the University of South Florida (USF) Health to transfer and update online histology slides from an outdated viewer to a completely new viewer. MethodologyThe project goal is to better facilitate the educational experience for students and faculty through the implementation of updated technology and features. ResultsAt USF Health, multiple programs use the online histology slide viewer to teach normal histology. The previous website's organization and lack of additional features severely hindered opportunities for personalized education; users could not write any notes, circle or point to important features, or easily search for specific organs or tissue. An updated website user interface and additional instructional features will improve the students' accessibility and overall quality of their learning. The updated viewer will be more integrated into the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine (MCOM) curriculum, providing faculty with organized and readily available material. USF MCOM has faculty integration directors to create a balanced curriculum that can be reviewed by faculty for consistency and accuracy. Adding this same organizational structure to the online microscopy viewer will assist directors in forming and modifying the curriculum and may also provide them with additional resources for their education delivery. ConclusionThe Virtual Microscopy Project hopes to produce an accessible, user-friendly online microscopy viewer that is beneficial to students for learning, to faculty for teaching/curriculum planning, and to medical education as a whole.