Acquiring experience in pathology predominantly from what you see, not from what you read: the HIPON e-learning platform

Abstract

Olga Riccioni,1,2 Charalambos Vrasidas,3 Luka Brcic,4 Goce Armenski,5 Sven Seiwerth,4 Annemieke Smeets,6 J Han JM van Krieken,6 Andreas C Lazaris1 11st Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece; 2School of Medicine, La Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy; 3Centre for the Advancement of Research and Development in Educational Technology LTD, Nicosia, Cyprus; 4Institute of Pathology, School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia; 5Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering, Saints Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, FYROM/Republic of Macedonia; 6Department of Pathology, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands Abstract: It is indisputable that nowadays one of the hardest and most important tasks in medicine and especially in medical education, is the conversion of the extensive amount of available data, into medical experience, after a proper analysis. A project under the title "ICT (Information and Communication Technology) eModules on HistoPathology: a useful online tool for students, researchers and professionals – HIPON", co-financed by the Lifelong Learning Program of the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), The Commission of the European Union, has been launched at the beginning of 2013. HIPON's purpose is not to provide just another pathology website atlas, but to convey professional experience and thinking in pathology. HIPON has resulted in a well-structured and user-friendly, open resource, multi-language, e-learning platform which, taking advantage of modern image technology, offers medical students, researchers, and professionals a valuable teaching instrument so that they can acquire professional experience in pathology. The mid-term report of HIPON has been favorably evaluated by the EACEA experts who appreciated the potential of our teaching tool in providing the opportunity and the means to acquire medical experience. Through the use of virtual slides, educative videos and microscopic, high resolution, marked images accompanied by relevant questions and answers, HIPON project aims to make end-users able to think as experienced pathologists and become highly efficient in correlating pathologic data with other clinical-laboratory information. Keywords: international medical education, website, educational technology, case study