The Changing Face of Histology: An Old Idea for a New Era

Curricular reform in medical education and a desire to use novel educational strategies that enhance student's appreciation of clinical reasoning, disease diagnosis, treatment, and global health, within a competency based framework, has resulted in a reduction in the number of hours allotted for the basic sciences, particularly histology. This trend across medical education was partly aided by the existence of computer‐assisted instruction designed to enhance or replace traditional teaching methods. One such strategy was the introduction of the Virtual Microscope in histology, a computer‐based program enabling viewing, navigating, and annotation of digital slides of thin sections of tissues and organs. With this tool in hand it became easy to manipulate histology into different teaching venues. With the introduction of new curricular additions into the first year curriculum, it became necessary to decrease the number of hours of some courses and to integrate others. At Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, histology (22 hrs) was integrated into the Structures course (nine‐weeks; 140 hours), which includes gross anatomy and embryology (18 hrs). The idea of merging these three disciplines is not new; Flexner stated in 1910, “… in addition to gross anatomy the student must make out under the microscope normal cellular structures and grasp the whole process of human development. Histology and embryology are essential aspects of anatomical study.” (Flexner Report, p. 25) What is new is the reduction in hours and the time in which the course material is taught. We present here the histology for the new era.