Digital Pathology is now empowering pathologists during conferences, providing them the ability to present and share cases digitally, without the need to manage microscope logistics and deal with technical issues that often arise when shipping instrumentation.
Proscia’s Concentriq digital pathology platform was selected to power the Rare and Interesting Cases Competition during this year’s Florida Society of Pathologists Conference in February. We’d like to thank Dr. Marilyn Bui and the FSP for the opportunity to power the competition with our Concentriq platform. For the competition, five residents presented a series of rare and interesting cases with H&E slides alongside imaging and clinical history. Whole slide images were displayed using Concentriq, making the cases easily accessible for attendees both in person and remote.
The utilization of digital pathology to present curriculum at a conference proved to be highly effective for presenters and attendees to view course images and follow along using their laptops and handheld devices. The overall experience was a major improvement over the traditional presentation style, not only for attendees and presenters, but for conference management helping to support the execution and delivery of content during the event. A bonus was enabling the attendees to view and prepare their diagnoses ahead of the meeting with simple training on how to access and view digital cases in Concentriq.
Concentriq provided an alternative way to view images and interact with the attendees, who were both in-person and remote. Leveraging the platform’s robust whole slide image viewer, participants were able to assess the finer details of the H&E slides even while seated in the back row of the auditorium. The live collaboration with attendees through the application allowed the presenter to pan and zoom to areas of interest without any lag or degradation of quality.
For each attendee, Concentriq’s browser-based platform was accessible on their personal devices allowing them to review areas of interest and finer details for the competition. Utilizing a digital platform to display WSIs engages the audience similar to a multiheaded microscope, maximizing collaboration and interaction.
How will digital pathology impact the future of education at pathology conferences?
Traditional microscope-based presentations often leave pathologists feeling the pressure of installing equipment, and properly projecting images live from their microscopes. Some experience a loss of image quality during their presentations, and some face challenges with matching the microscope’s field of view to the image projected on the larger screens. An unexpected technical difficulty at one conference required a video call with a vendor to troubleshoot during a session.
Digital Pathology is about powering the future of pathology. It fosters collaboration among scientific-driven minds while creating an educational platform to support pathologists and researchers globally. Digital pathology represents a paradigm shift in our approach to educating, offering flexibility and integrating tools for more effective learning.
