[Undergraduate Pathology: Video tutorials including digital pathology make teaching more practical and the subject more attractive]

Abstract

Introduction and objectives: Although pathology is one of the cornerstone subjects of the medical curriculum, for many students it can prove too theoretical and remote from clinical relevance. We present the results of a new distance learning project designed to make the teaching of pathology more practical and render the subject more attractive to the medical student.

Materials and methods: We developed a teaching programme which included digital pathology images and video tutorials of clinical cases; the students were required to arrive at a final diagnosis. An explanatory video of how biopsies are processed was also included. Twitter was used for rapid interaction with the students. A questionnaire was then completed by the participants evaluating the various aspects of the project.

Results: All the students reached a correct diagnosis for the clinical cases. 89% of the participants were extremely satisfied with the project. The majority agreed that the different activities were interesting and useful for improving their understanding of pathology and thus recommended that they should be continued.

Conclusions: Our results support the inclusion of digital pathology into the curriculum together with video tutorials to enhance undergraduate pathology teaching. In the future, such distance learning could prove a useful resource in combination with conventional face-to-face lectures and tutorials.

Keywords: Anatomía Patológica; Digital pathology; Docencia; Pathology; Patología digital; Teaching; Video tutorial; Video tutorials.