More Thoughts About HistoQuery: a Tool for Crowd-Sourcing Surgical Pathology Cases

In a recent note, I discussed HistoQuery, a crowd-sourcing web site to which surgical pathology case images can be uploaded (see:A New Tool for Obtaining Crowd-Sourced Diagnoses for Pathology Images). It was developed by Dr. Ulysses Balis and colleagues at the University of Michigan Medical School and intended as a pathology teaching resource. It seems to me that, in addition to such an audience, surgical pathologists from around the world could potentially use the site to obtain a consensus diagnosis for cases from his or her daily workload. The question then arises as to what type of cases would be uploaded to the web site to seek a crowd-sourced diagnosis for a case.For me, it seems clear that such cases would most likely be those for which the submitting pathologist is leaning in a particular direction for the diagnosis and then seeking a validation, albeit crowd-sourced and therefore not attributable to any one named colleague or consultant. Contrast this with a challenging case encountered by a pathologist who then seeks a consultation from an eminent pathologist or pathology department. Here such a case would certainly be sent to specific consultant (see:"Eminence-Based" Surgical Pathology and the Digital Pathology Department). In return, the submitting pathologist receives a signed report from an expert (generally) with a specific diagnosis. On to the next case!In addition, I need to give more thought to the question of the appropriat...
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