Virtual histology in the classroom and beyond

Context and setting We teach histology, mainly in the form of practical laboratory sessions, to over 1000 medical and science undergraduates each year. In the past this was a rather dryly taught subject and was disliked by students and therefore not learned effectively. By using the latest electronic technology, we have now grabbed students’ attention and re-stimulated their interest in this important subject linking cell biology to anatomy and physiology. Why the idea was necessary Students learning histology at our medical school have increased in number recently and it has become difficult to provide personal microscope time for them. In 2000 we instigated an in-house, computer-based system of histology teaching for practical classes. This was well received by students and staff, but now appears rather tired as it is a relatively static programme with little interactivity. What was done We have recently introduced a new, highly interactive, web-based digital microscope system for the viewing of histological images. This system, which we call UCL SlideSurfer, utilises very high-quality scanned images of our best microscope slides which can be viewed on class computers or online at home. This hardware and software package provides the element of real-time, dynamic microscopy and offers students a truly innovative experience in a manner analogous to that of Google Earth; they can view a tissue section on screen at a very low magnification and then zoom in on any region at progressively increasing magnifications, right down to single cells and nuclei at exceptionally high resolution. Students are led to important structures by a series of annotations on each ‘slide’, but are free to explore any part of the tissue. For this project, our extensive microscope slide collection covering the entire range of body tissues was systematically analysed and approximately 100 of the best-quality slides were chosen and dispatched to a professional provider of digital solutions, where they were scanned at very high resolution and uploaded to a website. When the quality of each scanned slide had been checked, text and questions were applied. Evaluation of results and impact Staff have found that SlideSurfer has stimulated students into learning histology. Student feedback has been exceptional; comments include: ‘I particularly like the software that is used within these practicals and I found SlideSurfer a very useful tool in helping me to cover all of the objectives’; ‘This is a fantastic way of teaching histology – the software [SlideSurfer] is brilliant’; ‘Really enjoyed using SlideSurfer and particularly the fact that we can access all the histology information from outside the labs’, and ‘Enjoyed the interactivity; maybe we could do more of that?’ Students liked having access to what is, in effect, a digital microscope with a box of our best slides at home or anywhere they have Internet access. We believe this is an innovative, engaging and effective method for teaching histology.