Whole slide imaging in cytopathology education

Rapid advances are occurring in the field of cytopathology education and training. Web-based cytopathology educational resources and whole slide imaging (WSI) have revolutionized cytopathology education and helped to centralize the cytopathology resources enabling simultaneous delivery of interactive cytopathology educational programs to a wide range of students and learners nationally and across the globe. WSI is playing a central role in digital pathology and are being utilized as an educational tool in many areas of pathology and cytopathology. This is mainly due to their easy access from anywhere and anytime, with no need for replication of glass slides or a big concern about the issue of protection of patient privacy. Today, WSI is used in a variety of educational settings, as a substitute to multi-headed microscopic sessions, multisite conferences, cytopathology web pages, self-assessment in cytology, cytology proficiency testing, virtual atlases, and very recently in scientific publications.