PATHOLOGISTS ATTITUDES TO IMPLEMENTING TELEPATHOLOGY

If pathologists will benefit so much from using telepathology, why is it taking so long to be introduced? This question has been discussed b etween experts, but the potential users are rarely asked for their opi nions. A questionnaire was sent to the 256 members of the Austrian Soc iety of Pathology; this addressed general aspects of telemedicine, tel epathology in frozen-section services and expert consultation, videoco nferencing technologies, teleteaching and teletraining. The response r ate was 46%. In general, the pathologist thought that telemedicine cou ld become valuable in their daily routine. However, pathologists were most afraid of sampling errors in remote diagnosis and would not readi ly accept an alternative to the conventional method of looking at a sa mple. This is only possible using realtime, remotely controlled micros copes. Telepathology systems providing only still images would not be acceptable to most respondents. There was interest in the use of video conferencing for clinicopathological conferences. Teleteaching and tel etraining were seen as welcome additional techniques, but were neverth eless judged unable to replace classical methods of teaching and train ing.