Lavisha S Punjabi¹, Wen-Bin Luo¹, Joey Yan Leng Tan¹, Yee Han Ning¹, Jason Chng Kiat Soon¹, Tang Po Yin¹. 

¹Department of Anatomical Pathology, Singapore General Hospital. 

 

Digital pathology has revolutionised medical education^1-3. The aim of this study is to explore trainees’ preferences and utilisation of digital teaching slide sets for learning, which was hitherto unknown at our centre.

 

Trainees were invited to participate in an electronic questionnaire, voluntarily and anonymously. 

 

Twenty-three responses were received. Majority were familiar using Path Presenter(78%), followed by social media(61%) for learning. Nearly all respondents indicated that their ideal digital resource would contain virtual slides and the diagnosis(96%), followed by annotations and explanations(87%). With regard to case mix, majority preferred examples of classic cases(91%), followed by examination-centred cases(87%). Annotations and explanations was ranked as the most important function(52%), followed by microscopic descriptions(26%). Conversely, the ability to bookmark/save cases in user-created sets was ranked as least important(48%) followed by the ability to search for cases based on difficulty(26%). Acknowledging the collective effort required in developing this resource, majority were willing to contribute up to 2 hours into the creation(87%) and maintenance(96%) of a digital educational platform. 

 

In conclusion, trainees are familiar with and keen to contribute towards the digitization of teaching slides. Annotation of slides is a highly valued feature. The results have guided institutional decisions on resources to develop and invest in.

 

1.     Hassell LA, Absar SF, Chauhan C, Dintzis S, Farver CF, Fathima S, Glassy EF, Goldstein JA, Gullapalli R, Ho J, Koch LK. Pathology education powered by virtual and digital transformation. Arch Pathol Lab Med. 2022 Jul 25.

2.     Flippo A, Dixit B, Schukow CP, Hacking SM, Song L, Fiock K, Golab K, Sowane S, Alter DN, Rohde RE, Baskota SU. Social media in pathology and laboratory medicine: A systematic review. Academic Pathology. 2024 Oct 1;11(4):100151.

3.     Schukow CP, Punjabi LS, Abdul-Karim FW. # PathX:# PathTwitter’s Transformation and a Discussion on Different Social Media Platforms Used by Pathologists in 2024. Advances in anatomic pathology. 2024 Jul 1;31(4):275-7.

 

Statement of originality and contributions:
LSP – conceptualisation, questionnaire drafting and dissemination, data analysis, abstract drafting.