Virtual Slidebox

About

Welcome to the Virtual Slide Box web site presented by the Pathology Service at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Here you will find educational cases that have been selected, annotated and managed by residents, fellows and faculty of the MGH Pathology Service . The key feature of the site is the use of whole slide imaging combined with the inclusion of informative annotations to delineate the salient features of each case.

History

The initial idea for the Virtual Slide Box was conceived by Abner Louissaint, M.D., Ph.D., chief resident of anatomic pathology (2008-09) at the Massachusetts General Hospital. During Fall 2008, Dr. Louissaint and Victor Brodsky, MD (the first pathology informatics fellow at MGH) initiated work on the site and laid the groundwork for the current site. Victor focused on building a framework based on bringing different platforms together to create a flexible and user friendly environment. A few months later, Russell Ryan, M.D., chief resident of anatomic pathology (2009-10), joined the effort to the develop the website, bringing new energy to the project. Since teaming up in 2008, Dr. Louissaint, Dr. Ryan and Dr. Brodsky have worked closely together to create the Virtual Slide Box in its current form.

The website would not have been possible without the support of Dr. Yukako Yagi (Director of Imaging) and Dr. Gilbertson (Director of Informatics) or the efforts and contributions of the participating MGH Pathology Service faculty, residents and fellows credited on the Editors page.

Technical Note

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
- Isaac Newton, 1676

The project uses open source components, including CentOS, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Wordpress MU, Article Directory, Shadowbox-JS, and others.

The project interfaces to the whole slide storage server that is currently in use by the department, and images are accessible from within Partners network or via a VPN connection.