The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) is launching “AskAFIP ™” version 2.0 so that any pathologist or clinician will have computer access to a wide range of content. The system, the brainchild of Dr. Jeffrey R. Galvin in the Department of Radiologic Pathology, who co-founded the Virtual Hospital at the University of Iowa, said “the system is based on the concept of “just-in-time” learning to provide physicians with information at the most critical time when they are actually treating patients. In general, we retain only 10% of what we hear in a lecture, but when we actually do something with the information like use it to diagnose or treat a patient, our ability to retain information increases dramatically.”
The system provides information on cases from the AFIP Central Repository complete with radiographic imagery, articles published by the staff, and access to AFIP Tumor Pathology published by the American Registry of Pathology. AskAFIP™ is more than just a search engine, as it can be a virtual instructor as well. Users can review cases from the database, select an organ system, review the patient’s history, see pertinent radiologic findings, and look at virtual slides. Other new features let users view and purchase digital copies of photos covering military medicine, customize start pages with news feeds from a variety of medical providers, and store search results. The system provides information to everyone from board-certified specialists to medical students in many related disciplines, such as radiology, dentistry, and veterinary medicine.
AskAFIP™ 3.0 will debut in 2007 and will include a handheld version and streaming video. Users of 3.0 will be able to create their own study sets from the AskAFIP™ database. The system is free for military physicians and available to civilian users for a nominal fee.
For more information go to http://www1.afip.org or contact the Department of Telemedicine and Distance Learning at telepath@afip.osd.mil.
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