Radiopaedia provides an excellent platform for web-based image review. You can present individual cases or create a playlist with several cases, and present these cases in a separate browser window during case conferences as "unknowns".

Radiopaedia cases allow you to scroll through a case, simulating a PACS/workstation teaching session, while supplementing the case with didactic teaching points. There is a great wealth of questions that can be asked when showing a full case.

Next level: The same cases can be shared with the attendees via weblink, QR code, or email before the conference. Each person can access and scroll through the case while you deliver the teaching points. This gives each member an opportunity to interact with the case and take their learning to the next level whether beginning or advanced (and closer to making independent diagnoses!).

Tip: You can hide the diagnoses of the case by selecting "Share" -> "Case/Playlist with hidden diagnosis".

Tip: Select "Share" -> "Full screen mode" to open a PACS-like image viewer.

Example case

Example playlist

This is the most sophisticated, robust, and frankly my favorite educational tool that exists in radiology today.

Pacsbin is a web-based anonymized DICOM viewer that simulated a PACS environment and allows both the presenter (and more importantly) the attendee to access full, DICOM cases in the didactic setting. They can use laptops, tablets, or phones to review cases. The phone interface is fantastic and intuitive.

For the beginning learner, getting used to the core features of a PACS viewer is an essential step to understanding radiology and becoming a savvy orderer, reviewer, and presenter of radiology images. Nearly every speciality will have opportunities to present radiology images to their patients, and this gives them an opportunity to learn the basics early on.

On my website, I have built Abdominal CT 101 and the UW Radiology-Pathology archive using Pacsbin. Abdominal CT 101 contains a detailed explanation on how to use the viewer.

Example case 1

Example case 2

Radiopaedia cases and playlists can be shared in a similar fashion to that described for Pacsbin above. You may find it more conveninent to use Radiopaedia cases becasue you do not have much experience exporting, preparing, and uploading cases to Pacsbin or Radiopaedia. Therefore, you could leverage the existing enormous case archive of nearly 35,000 cases.

As an example, let's say you are giving a lecture on Peptic Ulcer Disease. A full-screen playlist could be shared with the lecture via weblink or QR code. The presenter can give the attendees 2 minutes to review the case, after which he or she scrolls through the case in front of the group, reviewing key teaching points. Each case could be supplemented with key teaching points provided on separate PowerPoint slides.

However, many presenters prefer to use their own material, and therefore learning how to export and upload cases would likely be a valuable long-term goal if you have interest in creating interactive didactic material.

I personally take a combined approach on my website. I enjoy posting cases on Radiopaedia because of the durable education value (it will forever be available and searchable) reaches an enormous global audience (15 millions people each year).

But I prefer to use Pacsbin in the lecture setting because of the robust and flexible DICOM viewer. You cannot zoom/pan, annotate, window level, or triangulate in Radiopaedia. Therefore, if there is a finding on liver window, you will need to make sure that is uplaoded as separate series, which can become cumbersome to prepare in advance.