Title

Virtual Microscopy Fosters Higher Learning Capability For Medical Students Over Optical Microscopy in a Pathology Laboratory Course

Background

Pathology is fundamental in medicine in terms of understanding the basic knowledge of disease. Therefore, pathological laboratory demonstrations have been added into the curriculum of medical student’s. This study aimed to compare the advantage of virtual microscopy over optical microscopy in a pathology laboratory course.

Summary of Work

In the pathology laboratory course, 255 second year medical students from Khon Kaen University were subjected to use both virtual and optical microscopy simultaneously to study the pathology of certain diseases. A questionnaire was designed for students to comment their opinion on their experience with virtual and optical microscopy.

Summary of Results

In their opinion, virtual microscopy fostered a faster rate of learning than optical microscopy (p-value <0.0001). They reported that virtual microscopy was able to support their independent study (p-value 0.001), promote their understanding of the laboratory lesson (p-value <0.0001), make them confident during examination (p-value <0.0001) and feel greater satisfaction over optical microscopy (p-value <0.0001).

Conclusion

Virtual microscopy is designed to display a picture of an entire slide on a computer monitor. This allows students to learn as a group and allows teachers to clearly define important aspects on the slide. Therefore, students are able to better understand the lesson. Furthermore, personal computers allow virtual microscopy to be used at home, therefore it suitable for their independent study. Virtual microscopy offers a higher benefit over optical microscopy to students enrolled in a pathology laboratory course.

Take-home Messages

In the future, virtual microscopy may foster higher learning capability and play a major role in the laboratory curriculum of pathology courses.