Using the iPad for Medical Education
Med Presenter can be used for interactive medical imaging training (supports DICOM standard). Teaching material based on pdf documents can be used in a side-by-side layout to the medical images on the iPad. Students can read the slides or documents while they train with the DICOM images.
The following example illustrates how Med Presenter and the iPad can be used as teaching aid:
Teachers: Provide the Teaching Material to your Students
Prepare your lecture notes & slides (Keynote or Powerpoint):
1. Convert your lecture notes, reference material (papers) and course slides to PDF.
Keynote: If you have created your lecture slides in keynote you can export easily the slides to PDF. Open your slides in keynote and select in the main menu File -> Export... Choose PDF and the proper options like include slide numbers and include date. Click the Next button and type a meaningful filename you can refer to in your lecture.
Powerpoint: If you have created your lecture slides with Powerpoint you can convert the slides to PDF using the save as function. Open your slides in PPT and select in the main menu save as... -> PDF. Choose a meaningful filename you can refer to in your lecture. Optional: On Windows you can also install the free doPDF converter. It appears as printer driver and allows to print anything (any format) into a PDF file.
Prepare your Medical Images (DICOM images):
2. Gather the DICOM images you want to share with your students. Copy all images into a new folder on your computer.
3. Anonymize the DICOM images (on a MAC you can use the DICOM viewer OsiriX)
4. ZIP all DICOM images into one or several ZIP files (iTunes does NOT allow to synchronize folders to your iPad)
MAC: Open Finder and select the folder containing the DICOM images. Select in the main menu of Finder File -> Compress "XYZ"
Windows 7: Open Explorer and select the folder containing the DICOM images. Press the right mouse button and select send to -> ZIP. In case you don't have a ZIP tool on your windows version you can use this free ZIP tool.
Share the PDF documents (lecture notes & slides) and ZIP files (containing the DICOM images) with your Students:
5. We suggest to provide the PDF documents and ZIP files on the website of your lecture as download links. Talk to your IT expert that maintains the website of the lecture. He can add the PDF documents and all ZIP files to the website such that your students can easily download them. You can restrict the access by setting up a password for all files that only your students know.
Done. Your students can now download the teaching material and train with the DICOM images interactively using Med Presenter. They can study for example human anatomy (on different modalities as CT, MR, PET, SPECT and US) like on a PACS system anywhere. The teaching quality can be improved since students will not only work with prepared images of medical case studies. They can interactively navigate through the 3D images, study the case in arbitrary MPR orientations and work with intensity windowing.
Students: Synchronize the Teaching Material to the iPad
1. Install iTunes on your computer (MAC, Linux, Windows)
2. Install Med Presenter on your iPad and connect your iPad to the computer via USB
3. Download or copy the pdf documents (slides, papers, books, ...) on your computer
4. Download or copy the ZIP files - containing the DICOM images - on your computer
5. Synchronize the pdf documents and the ZIP files to Med Presenter Documents using iTunes:
Open the application iTunes, go to the Med Presenter Documents folder - as shown in figure 1 - and simply drag & drop each pdf document and the ZIP files containing the DICOM images to Med Presenter Documents in iTunes. The files are automatically synchronized to your iPad and can be used in Med Presenter anywhere. You are done!
Figure 1: Open iTunes on your computer, select your iPad to the left in DEVICES, select Apps (red dot in the image), scroll down in iTunes to the File Sharing section and select the Med Presenter app (black dot). The Med Presenter Documents are shown (blue dot area). Drag & drop the pdf documents and the ZIP files from your computer into the Med Presenter Documents section (blue dot) using your mouse device. The files are synchronized now automatically to your iPad and can be used in Med Presenter.
Example for a side-by-side layout of teaching material (anatomy of a knee) and a 3D MR image. The MPRs can be oriented arbitrarily :
Example DICOM ZIP files can be found here.
In case you want to work with the medical images additionally on your MAC at home you can use the DICOM viewer OsiriX.
