This fellowship came about from Kahane’s connection with Dr. Isabelle Meiers, a medical director at Oliver Laboratory in Belgium. Meiers made introductions between Kahane, Defroidmont, and Professor Philippe Delvenne, Head of the Pathology Department at the University Hospital of Liège. The group decided that a virtual fellowship would be beneficial and allow Defroidmont to develop digital pathology within their department and improve his skills in uropathology.
Kahane, located in New York, and Defroidmont, located in Belgium, have met over Zoom Meetings weekly to discuss prostate biopsy cases. Before these meetings, Defroidmont would look over the cases and annotate on his own, which allowed them to focus on the most important sections of tissue during their call. When Kahane and Defroidmont came together, the two went over cases and discussed annotations, grading, and finished signing out the pathology reports.
Defroidmont detailed that through the fellowship experience and being able to practice pathology digitally in this way, he saw that it is changing the field for the better. Moving the pathology process from working only on a microscope to working on an intuitive digital platform allowed them to view high-resolution images and sign-out cases on an iPad or another device. Defroidmont explained that with these digital capabilities it was much easier to point out a specific area to discuss when compared to using glass slides and a microscope.
Defroidmont also mentioned that thanks to PathNet’s use of the Lumea BxChip® all the prostate tissue cores were lined up straight. He explained that this allows pathologists to work faster when “every minute matters.”
Kahane reflected on the ability to complete this digital fellowship saying, “It’s amazing how we can all collaborate on cases in real-time throughout the whole world.”