Introducing Pathology to Undergrad Students and Public by Creating a Multimedia Open Ed Pressbook

By Will Engle on April 7, 2022

Project TitleIntroducing Pathology to Undergrad Students and Public by Creating a Multimedia Open Ed Pressbook
Principal InvestigatorDr. Jonathan Bush
Co-ApplicantsDr. Jennifer Kong (JK), Affiliate Instructor, Faculty of Medicine, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine (UBC) & Instructor, School of Computing & Academic Studies, Basic Health Sciences (BCIT)
Helen Dyck (HD), Manager of DHPLC, Faculty of Medicine, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine (UBC)
Frances (Lyz) Boyd (LB), Yr 1 medical student, Faculty of Medicine (UBC)
FacultyMedicine
Funding Year2021
Project Summary
We want to provide an open educational resource for programs teaching anatomy, histology, & pathology. This project aims to take material available at the David Hardwick Pathology Learning Centre (DHPLC) and provide them in an Open Ed Pressbook that will serve a resource for a number of UBC courses (undergraduate and graduate), as well as the general public. Faculty are always looking for any teaching resources to help move away from passive learning. Inclusion of this Open Ed project will provide both variety AND an opportunity for consolidation of multiple topics (eg. histology, anatomy, physiology, pathology, clinical care, interprofessional care etc). In addition this Pressbook would be an resource for faculty who do not have access to actual human specimens when teaching pathology. Faculty can build off this project and add their own program-specific addendum. For example, a pathology instructor can use the histopathology video lesson in lieu of a selection of still images – thus giving the students the real-life experience of using a microscope.

Our intent is to take the DHPLC to a wider audience, fulfilling its mission statement: “promotes the visual understanding of human diseases” to everyone. However, as in person visits to DHPLC aren’t always possible (e.g. audience can’t come to Vancouver, audience is too large) this project will be an online substitute, regardless of costs or location. The Pressbook will contain a series of multi-media lessons (with assessment) on pathology aimed primarily for undergraduate health science students. Each topic will be discussed at the level of tissue (histopathology) and organ structure (gross pathology). Each lesson includes the causes of common signs and symptoms (clinical manifestations), and how different health care professionals collaborate in the patient’s care. ‘Experts’ will discuss each aspect of the disease from their scope of care. The specimens being recorded are donated human organs with disease and corresponding histopathology from DHPLC. Interprofessional collaboration is a growing theme.

This project is building off of a BCIT-funded OER grant which allowed the applicants to collaborate for the first time between UBC & BCIT – the result being one chapter of a Pressbook. Thus, this RIG builds upon existing materials and will be done in relationship with that project. The applicants have also seen the value and real-life application of interprofessional education in health care: often, one health care professional doesn’t know what the roles & responsibilities of the other professional. This project hopes to expose the audience to the many roles in health care and their scope of practice when caring for a patient. Volunteers from BCIT’s School of Health Sciences will discuss their experiences thus highlighting the multiple health care professionals involved in a patient’s journey. To date, the applicants have not yet found an online resource akin to this proposed project. Similarly, a literature search did not yield something similar in the field of pathology.
Grant type OER Rapid Innovation
Funded Amount $2,000
StatusComplete: Project used as seed for OER Implementation Grant to further develop resources
Link to ResourcesPathology: From the Tissue Level to Clinical Manifestations and Inter-professional Care

Read More

Leave a Reply