The collection, considered historic, will be used to teach medical school residents and will serve as reference for faculty
Use of a microscope is at the heart of understanding skin disease. To better categorize cancerous tumors, benign growths, or other inflammatory afflictions of the skin, dermatologists rely on pathology reports to correlate their clinical observations.
Recently, Brown received some of the best microscope slides in existence for the teaching and evaluation of skin diseases. They are contained in a set of 2,000 original glass slides collected and catalogued painstakingly by two dermatologists over seven decades.
Milton R. Okun, M.D., clinical professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Boston University, donated the slides to the Department of Dermatology in the Brown Medical School. The slides will be used to teach Brown Medical School residents and to serve as a reference for faculty.
The late Walter Lever, M.D., former professor and chairman of the Department of Dermatology at Tufts University, began the collection more than 60 years ago. In collaboration, Lever and Okun developed it for almost 40 years.
The slides range from simple conditions, such as common tumors, to rare entities such as complex inflammatory lesions. (One example is shown at left.)
Previously, the collection was used to teach Harvard Medical School residents at Massachusetts General Hospital and Tufts Medical School residents at Boston City Hospital.
Okun wanted a home for the slides in a teaching program. "I think they’re a pretty good representation of skin pathology," he said. The collection is worth between $500,000 and $750,000.
In 1996, the Brown Medical School disaffiliated with Roger Williams Hospital, former home of the Department of Dermatology. The department left its collection of dermatopathology (the study of skin disease) microscope slides behind when it moved to Rhode Island Hospital the following year, as faculty were not allowed to take any teaching items with them.
"When we arrived at Rhode Island Hospital, the department experienced a major deficiency in its teaching material," said Charles J. McDonald, M.D., professor and chair, Department of Dermatology.
For three years, the department relied primarily on the small personal collection of skin disease microscope slides kept by Leslie Robinson-Bostom, M.D., assistant professor and director of the Division of Dermatopathology in the Department of Dermatology, as well as 35mm images of microscope slides.
"We now have more than 2,000 of the best teaching slides–original glass slides——available in dermatopathology," McDonald said. "They include every dermatological disease you can think of."
The collection is considered historic, McDonald said. The images served as the backbone of the "gold standard" of dermatopathology texts, "Gross and Microscopic Pathology of the Skin," he said.
For decades, the slides were also the basis for images used in the Dermatopathology Foundation’s postgraduate course, teaching fellowships, and 35mm teaching slide sets on gross and microscopic pathology of the skin.
The activities received international recognition and renown, McDonald said. Pathology and dermatology departments have used the teaching tools worldwide, he said.
"The slides helped delineate the field of dermatopathology as it is known today," said Robinson-Bostom, their new keeper.