Seven years ago hardly anyone knew what digital pathology (or virtual microscopy) was. I thought we had overcome much of this, yet it turns out we still have a lot of work to do to get the message beyond the pathologists.

Last week I delivered a presentation on digital pathology, sponsored by Nikon Instruments, to an audience of laboratory and diagnostic imaging professionals at the Amerinet (GPO) Member Conference.  It was an excellent and eye opening experience (hopefully for my audience too).  My presentation began with asking the audience “What is digital pathology?”  Some people shock there heads, I had lots of blank stares, and one person who finally said…

You scan a glass slide and share it with others.

I then asked, “how many of you do not know what digital pathology is? Over a dozen people raised their hands.  I was not surprised but it highlights the point that we have a lot of educating to do.  Not just to educate about digital pathology, but to change perceptions that digital pathology is just a scanned glass slide.   Here are some other interesting points I took home from my audience:

• Barcodes: Another poll of the audience revealed that not a single lab represented in the room has automated their histology process with barcodes, beyond the stainer barcode.
• File Size: I asked the audience “what is the average file size of a whole slide image?”  I had a few hands go up and the guesses were 30 MB and 50 MB!  I heard audible gasps and WOWs when I revealed the actual average size was between 250-300 MB each (at 20x) and that some WSI could be a Gig or larger.

We’ve got some work to do! It is time to educated beyond the pathologist and reach our laboratory administrators, histotechs, IT managers, hospital administrators, and physicians who routinely interact with pathologists.