MedPics: An Image Library for Medical Education (Out of Print)

Abstract MedPics is a web-based image delivery system collaboratively developed at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine's Office of Education Computing and Histology and Human Disease course faculty. MedPics is a self-paced learning environment that uses on-screen guidance to assist students in key feature identification and image interpretation. The supporting text provides core and clinically relevant information about each image and a learning framework for organizing the subject matter. MedPics has been used by second-year medical students at the institution as an integral part of their curriculum since 1992. A standard screen layout and navigation scheme makes the program easy to learn and use, enabling students to focus their efforts on the instructional content. Each display is a combination of image and supporting text organized into standard information fields of title, features, and summary. In the standard mode, students explore one lesson module at a time and the supporting text fields for each image are displayed (default). In the review mode, students can select one or more lesson modules and the available images related to that lesson are randomized for self-testing. In this latter mode, the supporting text fields for each image are not displayed unless students specifically seek the information. Additional options, such as changing image display size, enable further customization of the display