Digital Histology Interest Group or DHIG

Dear DHIG colleagues,

Allow me to introduce myself! My name is Stefanie Attardi and I am new to the DHIG. I am an Assistant Professor at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine in Rochester, Michigan. I primary teach histology but also contribute to gross anatomy in the dissection laboratory. I am in the beginning stages of research on medical histology education.

Sparked by James Rhodes’ post about a histology round table, I recently asked Bob Ogilvie if he could recommend any professional meetings for histologists. I was looking for a meeting that included: (1) ample sessions about excellence in histology teaching and research on histology education; (2) the opportunity to meet vendors who sell software specific to histology teaching and to trial their products; and (3) a venue to network with fellow histologists. We were unable to find such event. Many of the anatomy conferences focus on gross anatomy and offer, at most, one special session dedicated to histology. Meetings of other associations (e.g. IAMSE, AAMC, AMEE) cover a broad range of topics in medical education, so they are not able to devote sufficient time to histology.

I believe we are all aware that as medical curricula become more integrated, the amount of time devoted to histology teaching decreases (Bloodgood and Ogilvie, 2006; Drake et al., 2009) and the content becomes dispersed. Despite when and how it is included in the curriculum, it is important that we continue to advocate the importance of our discipline and to develop best teaching practices.

Bob and I have been speaking with other histologists to gather ideas for professional development opportunities in our discipline. Here are some suggestions:

• Development of an AAA Histology Training Program. (Example of an anatomy training program: http://www.anatomy.org/anatomy-training-program.html)

• One day histology meeting following the conclusion of the annual AAA meeting in the same city

• Mini-meeting within the annual AAA meeting at EB (i.e. 3 sessions focused on histology)

• Histology-focused AAA regional meeting

• Histology-focused webinar series

We are trying to get preliminary information from all (nearly 70) members of the DHIG to see if you share our interest in advancing professional development for histologists. Which of the above ideas are the most and least appealing to you and why? Do you have any ideas to add? Do you think the sentiment of the DHIG is captured in the slogan “transforming histology”? Do you have colleagues outside of the DHIG who teach concepts using microscopic images and might be interested in this kind of professional development (e.g. members of the American Society for Investigative Pathology)?

Some of the ideas would require funding (e.g. through the AAA Innovations Program). Should we move forward with an Innovations Program application, a questionnaire could more formally capture input from the DHIG. Your initial thoughts would be much appreciated.

Sincerely,

Stefanie Attardi

Literautre Cited:

Bloodgood RA, Ogilvie RW. 2006. Trends in histology laboratory teaching in the United States medical schools. Anat Rec B New Anat 289:169–175.

Drake RL, McBride JM, Lachman N, Pawlina W. 2009. Medical education in the anatomical sciences: The winds of change continue to blow. Anat Sci Educ 2: 253– 59.

Dear DHIG colleagues,

Allow me to introduce myself! My name is Stefanie Attardi and I am new to the DHIG. I am an Assistant Professor at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine in Rochester, Michigan. I primary teach histology but also contribute to gross anatomy in the dissection laboratory. I am in the beginning stages of research on medical histology education.

Sparked by James Rhodes’ post about a histology round table, I recently asked Bob Ogilvie if he could recommend any professional meetings for histologists. I was looking for a meeting that included: (1) ample sessions about excellence in histology teaching and research on histology education; (2) the opportunity to meet vendors who sell software specific to histology teaching and to trial their products; and (3) a venue to network with fellow histologists. We were unable to find such event. Many of the anatomy conferences focus on gross anatomy and offer, at most, one special session dedicated to histology. Meetings of other associations (e.g. IAMSE, AAMC, AMEE) cover a broad range of topics in medical education, so they are not able to devote sufficient time to histology.

I believe we are all aware that as medical curricula become more integrated, the amount of time devoted to histology teaching decreases (Bloodgood and Ogilvie, 2006; Drake et al., 2009) and the content becomes dispersed. Despite when and how it is included in the curriculum, it is important that we continue to advocate the importance of our discipline and to develop best teaching practices.

Bob and I have been speaking with other histologists to gather ideas for professional development opportunities in our discipline. Here are some suggestions:

• Development of an AAA Histology Training Program. (Example of an anatomy training program: http://www.anatomy.org/anatomy-training-program.html)

• One day histology meeting following the conclusion of the annual AAA meeting in the same city

• Mini-meeting within the annual AAA meeting at EB (i.e. 3 sessions focused on histology)

• Histology-focused AAA regional meeting

• Histology-focused webinar series

We are trying to get preliminary information from all (nearly 70) members of the DHIG to see if you share our interest in advancing professional development for histologists. Which of the above ideas are the most and least appealing to you and why? Do you have any ideas to add? Do you think the sentiment of the DHIG is captured in the slogan “transforming histology”? Do you have colleagues outside of the DHIG who teach concepts using microscopic images and might be interested in this kind of professional development (e.g. members of the American Society for Investigative Pathology)?

Some of the ideas would require funding (e.g. through the AAA Innovations Program). Should we move forward with an Innovations Program application, a questionnaire could more formally capture input from the DHIG. Your initial thoughts would be much appreciated.

Sincerely,

Stefanie Attardi

Literautre Cited:

Bloodgood RA, Ogilvie RW. 2006. Trends in histology laboratory teaching in the United States medical schools. Anat Rec B New Anat 289:169–175.

Drake RL, McBride JM, Lachman N, Pawlina W. 2009. Medical education in the anatomical sciences: The winds of change continue to blow. Anat Sci Educ 2: 253– 59.

Hi Stefanie, I've been teaching Histology online for The University of Texas at El Paso since 2000.  I am officially retired but teach 130 - 150 students online in the fall, spring and summer semesters from my home in Ocean City, NJ.  I have published some pedagogical observations about using retrieval practice (learning though testing) and some of the early findings can be seen at http://www.e-mentor.edu.pl/artykul/index/numer/26/id/582 and it's also of interest that I just completed submitting grades for the spring offering of Histology where I piloted a video proctoring tool called Respondus which has shown that online students in a video proctored environment using Respondus show similar grade distributions as when tightly timed testing (retrieval practice) was used.  This is a "hot off the press" result as grades have just been submitted for 133 students and I plan next to gather data from Blackboard about how many times students used the study quizzes since past results show a strong correlation between how many times and how long a time students study the practice quizzes and the grade they receive at the end of the semester.

My other interest that competes with the retrieval practice approach involves 3D printing.  I am 3D printing 2D images from microscope slides as well as anatomic sections from the Visible Human project at the National Library of Medicine so that students who are blind or visually impaired can study these 3D prints using a tactile method involving iPads and iPad Pros.  3D prints of microscope images or anatomic sections made with conductive filament can be placed atop an iPad with appropriate software so that now when touched, the iPad audio response can tell the student what they are touching.  You can see more about this in a recent publication at http://www.e-mentor.edu.pl/eng/article/index/number/63/id/1222 where a virtual anatomic section showing eye anatomy was included along with other examples of complex images.  I've also placed a number of 3D print files for mitosis for others to download at the NIH 3D print exchange at http://3dprint.nih.gov/discover/3dpx-000519 .  I'm not sure if this approach to 3D printing and histology is of interest to folks but I think a focus of both pedagogy which I think you’ve covered and also some thoughts about 3D printing solutions to meet growing accessibility concerns might also be included. There are not many blind students in medical schools but more at the college level and certainly more at the high school level and possibly, if there were more ways to introduce blind or visually impaired students to ways of studying histology and anatomy that involved 3D printed audio-enriched tactile learning at an earlier time in their education, we might see an increase in blind or visually impaired students at all levels of science and professional education.

For the pedagogical side, I like the idea of image repositories and linked to them question data banks as that would lead to more retrieval practice pedagogical options. From the 3D print side, 2D images can also be made into 3D print files that everyone can use on their home, office or lab 3D printer so an image repository linked to a 3D print parallel repository has advantages also.

Best,

Mike

It would be helpful to meet with others who teach histology.  I would be in favor of meeting with others either within the AAA meeting or immediately following the meeting.  I would not be in favor of a separate meeting or addition to a regional meeting.

Hope this works out and I would be happy to help get it together!

I think these are all great ideas.

I believe the most well attended would be a Mini-meeting within the annual AAA meeting at EB (i.e. 3 sessions focused on histology).

My 2 cents,

Linda May

Hi all,

I've been following the discussion on the Forum.  Love the enthusiasm!  I really like the idea of a webinar series for teaching histology.  This would be a huge member benefit, and could outweigh the benefit of a one-day meeting or a mini-meeting within EB, as not all of our members are able to travel to the annual meeting.  A histology webinar series would help spread your knowledge and expertise, and educate the next generation of anatomists.

I bring to your attention the Innovations Program.  Letter of intent deadline is June 15!

Keep up the conversation!

Kim

I agree with Kim's thoughts on a focused webinar series about teaching histology.  Of all the suggestions, it would probably have the broadest benefit for AAA members.  I was also thinking of how we might change the DHIG luncheon.  It is great fun to get together in a nice restaurant, but might it be more practical to have a luncheon at the meeting site where we can have a meaningful discussion about teaching histology while we enjoy lunch?  The restaurant atmosphere and seating arrangement has not been conducive to chatting about histology.  We can also encourage members of the group to organize occasional symposia like the one Raj put together for this year's meeting.

Dave

I agree with Kim and DAve that the webinar will have more far-reaching benefits than just the session at the annual meeting. I also agree with Dave regarding the luncheon at the meeting site is much more conducive to a collegial atmosphere than a local restaurant.

A histology focused roundtable or teaching symposia would be great as well!

Great ideas!!

LindaMay

Stefanie and Bob,

Thanks for this discussion!  I would be in support of any format you end up choosing, we certainly can use a platform for sharing and disseminating our histology knowledge, technologies and educational strategies.

Perhaps you might consider conducting a survey among DHIG (or all AAA) membership to see what kind of histology (education/research/technology) topics come up as pressing areas for discussion or needing resources.  I really liked the recent AAA survey question: "What keeps you up at night?"  I bet you'd get some interesting responses and insight into what issues need AAA support.  The responses may guide you in choosing the best format in addition to getting you guys some background rationale for the innovation grant.

All the best,

Lisa 

Hi Stefanie and DHIG colleagues,

These are all great ideas. I would love to see more histology in the AAA meeting.

I really enjoyed the education roundtable session at the AAA meeting this year. I was lucky enough to squeeze onto a Histology table and we had some good discussion about how certain topics are taught at different institutions which I found very interesting. Something like this, where all the histologists can get together would be most effective for concocting new ideas and sharing best current practices.

I'm not a huge fan of having a separate breakaway meeting after AAA - it doesn't really emphasize the integration that many of us are striving to achieve in our teaching. However, I would be all in for a histology focused series of sessions held during the meeting. This would be more inclusive of people whose focus is not histology and allow better opportunity for them to come and see the many great things happening surrounding histology and histology education. 

I also had a fantastic time at the DHIG luncheon that Lisa organized (thanks Lisa!) while it wasn't necessarily conducive to discussing histology it was such a good opportunity to meet some of you outside of a discussion board or a meeting room. So don't be too quick to drop what could become a nice little intra-AAA histological tradition :)

I do like the idea of an online Histology training program. It would perhaps be even more powerful if the histology was integrated with the existing gross anatomy training program. Giving trainees the opportunity to drill down and see the organs and tissues they are dissecting at the cellular level. It would be fairly straightforward to integrate some basic digital histology modules into an existing program that align nicely with systems/regional based gross anatomy. Logistically/timewise I am not sure whether this would be possible but I do know that histology enriches the learning of anatomy and vice versa. I co-direct an integrated gross anatomy/histology course for our dental students. It is referred to lovingly by its participants as "GRISTO" and has been very successful.

Webinars are a great way of extending the reach of a session. Have you thought about inviting web participants to a live session taking place during the meeting - you could stream it using Periscope or similar. A sort of 'histology on-demand' opportunity. I'm not sure what AAA organizers' thoughts are on this (?), it hasn't happened yet as far as I know, so it may be a non starter. I know many pathologists that are interested in histology, education and technology, however, when they select a meeting they are more likely to attend something that is more clinical path focused... they may be more inclined to jump into and contribute to a live web session for an hour or so. Histology would also get more international exposure.

Anyway, just some immediate thoughts off the top of my head. I am happy to help out in any way - you know where to find me!

Cheers,

Nathan

Hi Stef,

All of these suggestions are great!  I really love the idea of incorporating histology meetings/seminars into the annual AAA meeting, or immediately following the meeting.

Hopefully we can get this rolling.

Hello everyone,

Thank you to those who replied with your thoughtful feedback!  It is inspiring to hear from you.  Based on your input, it looks like we will submit a letter of intent to the Innovations Program to fund a histology webinar series.  If you haven't responded yet, we're still interested in hearing your thoughts via this forum.

Should we be invited to submit a proposal, we will put together a formal survey to capture the specific needs of AAA members.  We will keep you updated through Anatomy Connected.

Many of you expressed interest in coming together at some point during the annual meeting since the DHIG luncheon and histology tables at the round table session are becoming very popular.  Let's keep these discussions going too so that our group can connect in person.  I agree that this is important.

Cheers,

Stefanie

I've been following the discussion, and I guess I probably should weigh-in with my observations. 

First, it was suggested that the Digital Histology group should consider looking for a different venue for our community ("(e.g. IAMSE, AAMC, AMEE)").  As a very-long time member of AAA with a lot of loyalty to the Association, I think that Anatomy is the "natural" home for our community and that it would be a shame to have to switch to a different venue.  I think that we should try to work within the confines of AAA, but If we decide to move, the American Society for Cell Biology might be a better fit than a 'general education' group like IAMSE ... most histologists also are (closet) cell biologists.  But I really think that we should try to stay within AAA.

Second, I do NOT think that a webinar series can substitute for the sort of more informal discussions that we would like/need.  While I'm not opposed to a webinar series, I think that an informal round-table session would be much more useful.  My experience with webinars is that they really are more similar to a lecture format than to an informal round-table discussion, and I don't think that a webinar series will allow the type of interactions that we would have at a meeting (those face-to-face interactions is why we go to the EB meeting). If the Program Committee for AAA can't accommodate an informal round-table for DHIG, then perhaps we should look into how complicated it would be to expand on the DHIG luncheons that Lisa has put-together at the last two EB meetings.  From my perspective, the down-side to our previous luncheons was that our table was in the middle of a noisy dining room, which limited discussion.  Would we be able to do the sort of networking that we've been talking about if we had a private dining room and allocated more time for the luncheon?  Would AAA be willing to support this financially as a 'mini-meeting' within the context and time-frame of the EB meeting?  If AAA wouldn't support this, would the members of DHIG be willing to sign-up (and pay) in advance for reserving a private dining room at a restaurant during the EB meeting?

I've been following the discussion, and I guess I probably should weigh-in with my observations. 

First, it was suggested that the Digital Histology group should consider looking for a different venue for our community ("(e.g. IAMSE, AAMC, AMEE)").  As a very-long time member of AAA with a lot of loyalty to the Association, I think that Anatomy is the "natural" home for our community and that it would be a shame to have to switch to a different venue.  I think that we should try to work within the confines of AAA, but If we decide to move, the American Society for Cell Biology might be a better fit than a 'general education' group like IAMSE ... most histologists also are (closet) cell biologists.  But I really think that we should try to stay within AAA.

Second, I do NOT think that a webinar series can substitute for the sort of more informal discussions that we would like/need.  While I'm not opposed to a webinar series, I think that an informal round-table session would be much more useful.  My experience with webinars is that they really are more similar to a lecture format than to an informal round-table discussion, and I don't think that a webinar series will allow the type of interactions that we would have at a meeting (those face-to-face interactions is why we go to the EB meeting). If the Program Committee for AAA can't accommodate an informal round-table for DHIG, then perhaps we should look into how complicated it would be to expand on the DHIG luncheons that Lisa has put-together at the last two EB meetings.  From my perspective, the down-side to our previous luncheons was that our table was in the middle of a noisy dining room, which limited discussion.  Would we be able to do the sort of networking that we've been talking about if we had a private dining room and allocated more time for the luncheon?  Would AAA be willing to support this financially as a 'mini-meeting' within the context and time-frame of the EB meeting?  If AAA wouldn't support this, would the members of DHIG be willing to sign-up (and pay) in advance for reserving a private dining room at a restaurant during the EB meeting?

Kem,

You and James Rhodes make a good point!   I am willing to bet that I am truly an 'old professor' having retired twice and on my third career of now 8 years teaching and managing a popular online histology course for the University of South Carolina.  Absolutely, there is no adequate way to substitute or replace face to face contact with students or with colleagues concerning issues related to teaching histology.  At the same time, a series of Webinars related to approaches to teaching histology face to face and online can be very helpful to some of our AAA members who cannot attend the annual meeting due to time and/or financial constraints.  I have been having email and phone conversations with Lisa Lee and Stefanie Attardi (and with Michael Hortsch and Haviva Goldman) about all of these issues.  I have encouraged them to proceed with a few Webinars and I know they are also working on a better venue for the gathering of histologists at lunch within the location and context of the annual meeting.  I encourage you and all of my histology colleagues in this forum to jump in with help and ideas as they work on some venues.  I am a career long histologist so am definitely biased toward a good presence of histology in medical curricula.  I am aware that there seem to be those who are thinking more and more histology as a side show and not necessary as a crucial component of medical curricula.  I am in the camp that believes histology is critical because it provides for the student the substrate upon which function occurs at the microscopic level, histophysiology.  So, my main point is that technology available to us today provides a way to reach and contribute to members of our society that cannot regularly attend the annual meetings. I will turn 80 this summer.  I communicate with my online histology course students by email, discussion board, posted videos explaining difficult to understand content in the course and sometimes by a phone conversation.  Not a substitute for face to face, but it works!

Bob Ogilvie

The Program Committee is always looking for ideas and proposals! I highly suggest that if an informal round table discussion would benefit the majority, that we get in touch with the Program Committee as soon as possible. 

The Program Committee Co-Chairs are:

Dr. Paul Trainor (Stowers Institute for Medical Research)  pat@stowers.org

Dr. Martine Dunnwald (University of Iowa) martine-dunnwald@uiowa.edu

Someone else who may be interested as well is our ACYA Representative of the Program Comittee, Dr. Margaret McNulty (Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine) mcnulty@lsu.edu 

Sonya

Well said Bob!  Dave (another old histology teacher)

Hello everyone,

I love all the active discussion among this group!  I have been reading the posts and wanted to touch base with you regarding any activities at the Annual Meeting at EB 2017 in Chicago. It is better to plan early. While we don't really have money budgeted for any additional activities, I do have some ideas for low-cost activities for the group to get together.  When the group meets, is it just for networking and brainstorming ideas? Or will there need to be a presentation with powerpoint presentations? 

Some ideas that we might be able to do (depending on interest):

• Provide a room at lunch time for a brown bag lunch.  There are limited options for restaurants near McCormick Place convention center for the group to meet for lunch.  There is a food court in the convention center.  If the group wants to grab lunch (on their own), then I can provide you with a room to sit and talk without the noise and distraction of a restaurant.
• Provide a room in the morning or late afternoon for a networking round table symposium.  This would be before or after the daily sessions though. 
• Not related to the annual meeting, but if the group would like to have conference calls then we can provide a conference call number for monthly or quarterly calls.  There is a cost involved, but minimal to the association. 

Please let me know your thoughts on any of the above and I can move forward with the planning.

Thank you,

Colby

Thanks, Colby!  These are all great options and I am so grateful to AAA for the support!

I think to start off, a meeting room for our lunch gathering would be greatly appreciated - given the conference center location, it is definitely not feasible for us to venture out and come back in time for other sessions.  Is there a rough draft of the conference schedule to see if there's a good time slot for us to meet?

A round table or a symposium would be great too but this requires planning and scheduling so regular conference calls among interested members would be great too. 

Colby:

Thanks for the suggestions!

I'll defer to the group's consensus (Lisa, Michael, or Haviva: would you be interested/willing to be the 'point-person' for developing a consensus?), but my 'vote' is for Colby's option #2 ("Provide a room in the morning or late afternoon for a networking round table symposium.  This would be before or after the daily sessions though") ... an early 'breakfast' meeting or a late 'happy-hour' round-table meeting seems to be ideal since it would be least likely to conflict with other EB events (although that also might be true for a lunch-time meeting).  If we aim for a late afternoon meeting, if possible, we probably should look for a day when there wasn't a major keynote talk (e.g., biochemist's Herbert Tabor lecture, pathologist's Rous-Whipple lecture, or physiologist's Walter Cannon lecture) scheduled at the same time.  The advantage of a 'happy-hour' round-table would be that there wouldn't be something really pressing right afterwards ... so we wouldn't have to shut-down discussions at the official 'end-time'.  From my perspective, we also could make a 'breakfast' or 'lunch' meeting work nearly as well as a 'happy-hour' meeting, particularly if there wasn't something scheduled in the room immediately following our round-table.

What are the rules regarding funding an EB session?  When Matt Velkey, Jennie Eastwood, and I proposed a round-table histology session three years ago, we discussed the possibility of soliciting financial support from one or several of the 'virtual' microscopy companies: Aperio (Leica) and Olympus were the companies we first thought about, but MBF Bioscience or GE might be other possibilities.  If AAA could provide the DHIG with a room and a time-slot, would it be against the 'rules' for us to get a vendor to provide the food?

If we can do it, I think that it would be really great to get the round-table session scheduled for this year's EB2017 meeting.

      - -  Jim

Hi Jim, you and Lynne both bring up great and concrete ideas for discussion by the group!  I think the best place to start would be a conference call to brainstorm and hash out some details.  I volunteer Stefanie (I know she wouldn't mind) to get involved in this endeavor since she started this thread of discussion along with Bob Ogilvie. 

In the meantime, I'll get in touch with Colby to see about setting up a conference call.  

I also like the face to face interaction with students as well as with colleagues much more than I like webinars or other digital formulations. However, extended face to face meetings are difficult to arrange even during the FASEB Meetings, therefore, I would be very happy to participate in digital conversations with those members of the Digital Histology group who are able to find the time to join the discussion. Most of us who teach or - in my case taught - Histology are committed to the subject matter and view it as a lynch-pin that helps students transition from Gross Anatomy to Physiology to Immunology, and to Histopathology. It is a shame that Medical and Dental School curricula neglect the anatomical sciences especially when the future of Medicine is so intimately entwined with human biology.

I also like the face to face interaction with students as well as with colleagues much more than I like webinars or other digital formulations. However, extended face to face meetings are difficult to arrange even during the FASEB Meetings, therefore, I would be very happy to participate in digital conversations with those members of the Digital Histology group who are able to find the time to join the discussion. Most of us who teach or - in my case taught - Histology are committed to the subject matter and view it as a lynch-pin that helps students transition from Gross Anatomy to Physiology to Immunology, and to Histopathology. It is a shame that Medical and Dental School curricula neglect the anatomical sciences especially when the future of Medicine is so intimately entwined with human biology.

Lynn: 

You wrote:  "Similarly, I use ExamSoft for my lecture exams but not lab exams.  If there is someone out there who uses the system with pictures, hearing from then would also be great."  I was confronted by a similar problem last year when the PNWU curriculum switched from a discrete histology course to including the histology lecture/lab as part of Systems courses.  Prior to the switch, my Image Exam (lab exam) was in PowerPoint format with each question consisting of a series (usually) low-, intermediate-, and high-magnification still images of a single specimen.  In the new curriculum, with only one or two labs in a System, there isn't enough material for a stand-alone Image Exam in each System course.  As a result, we had to find a way to incorporate Image-exam type questions into ExamSoft, so that they could be included as part of the regular System-course exams.

We explored several options which didn't work, but Lei Ye, our Instructional Design person at PNWU, hit upon the solution of converting each Image-exam question (originally created in PowerPoint format) into a PDF, and then attaching the PDF to the appropriate ExamSoft question.  When taking the exam, the PDF appears in a window (which the student can re-size) attached to the question, and the student can step through the images in the PDF the same way that we used to step through the slides in a PowerPoint-based image exam.  The question is still a short-answer question and is essentially the same as it would have been in my former the PowerPoint-based Image exams.  If you are interested, I can share more details with you off-line.

I think including a discussion of incorporation of image-based questions into exams probably would be a useful and appropriate topic for a DHIG round-table meeting ... but it might be even better as a discussion topic at the traditional annual AAA Education Round-table Session, since gross anatomists and embryologists also may face a similar issue of incorporating image-based questions into exams.

Hope that this is helpful.

     - - Jim

P.S. In order to make certain that the student's computer doesn't have an issue with displaying a PDF in ExamSoft, we provide the student's with a dummy one-question ExamSoft test that they are supposed to 'take' the day before the 'real' exam.  I've attached the PDF for the 'dummy' question to this discussion so that you can see how the PDF-based image-question is formatted.  (This is a 'dummy' question; we don't ask students to identify flowers as part of the histology course ... but it is in the same format as the histology image questions.)

Attachment(s)

ImageTestQ01a.pdf   1.09 MB 1 version

Hi DHIG,

I apologize for not responding over the past week.  I am returning from vacation and it's encouraging to come back to so many messages!

Thanks Colby for letting us know about the resources the AAA can provide to facilitate conversations of the DHIG (e.g. meeting rooms at EB, conference calls).  It's evident that the group wants a face-to-face meeting at EB in some way, shape, or form and what you have offered to us will be very helpful.

I agree with Lisa that a conference call with interested members will help us brainstorm.  Lisa was correct - I am happy to help with this.  Lisa and I are going to chat and we'll be in touch with you all soon about a conference call.

Jim - Thank you for listing scheduling issues to consider.  We will need to talk about all of your points.

Lynne - I think the DHIG will have many meaningful discussions this coming year, leading to lots of ideas for a symposium in time for the 2018 deadline.  Thank you for encouraging us.

Stefanie

p.s. An update about the histology webinars:

A webinar series will still be discussed within this group, though we are not submitting a letter of intent to the Innovations Program (it is not necessary).  We'll gather your input before taking any steps forward to get them going.

Hello everyone,

We started a new thread to discuss planning a DHIG meeting at EB2017 in Chicago.  Please complete a doodle poll posted in the thread to get on a conference call and help us plan our meeting.