Annual review: The BerlinCaseViewer in 2020

What an eventful year! 2020 was a lot, but definitely different. In the annual review at the BerlinCaseViewer, we review the last twelve months. Find out what’s new and what you can look forward to in 2021. 

January under the banner of axial spondyloarthritis 

In January, in a cooperation with the ASAS society, everything revolved around axial spondyloarthritis. On the initiative of rheumatologist Denis Poddubnyy, the BCV helped develop the ASAS Online Case Library. The new, free e-learning tool provides a collection of real cases that radiologist Kay G. Hermann and rheumatologist Mikhail Protopopov have compiled together with rheumatologist Joachim Sieper as medical advisor. Typical differential diagnoses are included to make it even easier for interested doctors to identify axSpA at an early stage. 

ASAS Online Case Library on an iPad.

March in front of the screen – working from home 

By March at the latest, we also had to rethink. Work continued from home and our team set up the web app in no time. Courses that would otherwise have been canceled now took place online. Our lecturers can use the web app to control the online events down to the last detail and provide targeted feedback for the participants. 

This year, a total of 25 live events in 6 countries and regions went on the screen. There were interested people from Germany and all over the world – from the Arabian Peninsula to Romania and Slovenia to Taiwan. We dealt with rheumatism, organized a training series on multiple sclerosis (neuroradiology) with Roche and supported a basic course on skeletal radiology with MSK-Wissen. 

April with focus on COVID-19 

In April, the global coronavirus pandemic continued to keep us in the grip. The diagnosis of this novel lung disease poses a particular challenge. Together with the Italian pulmonary radiologist Fabio Macori and Yuranga Weerakkody, a radiologist from Australia with thoracic sub-specialty expertise, we developed a quiz on lung changes in COVID-19 pneumonia with the corresponding differential diagnoses. You can download the module that helps to detect COVID-19 in the CT for free. 

May turns Instagram into a learning platform 

With the BCV you can train yourself live on your PC and Mac, study our cases on the iPad and since May also learn on Instagram with @berlincaseviewer. By the way, the @rheumaimaging account is still there for everyone who wants to follow the radiologist Kay G. Hermann directly. 

September brings the BerlinCaseViewer to your iPhone 

Our developers have been tinkering with this for a while and finally, since September, the iPhone version of the BerlinCaseViewer app is here! This step was a special milestone for us because we are reaching more and more people via social media channels. Around 1,000 people around the world now use our app. Get your free version for the iPhone directly in the App Store

BerlinCaseViewer now running on iPhone

Final sprint 2020: These new learning modules are available 

Over the year we have continuously expanded the range of our learning modules. 

The COVID quiz is at the top of the list of downloads. This is not surprising, since the disease is not only interesting for a group of specialists, but affects everyone. This module combines cases with and without the lung infection with multiple-choice questions, important facts and links to current literature. 

Axial spondyloarthritis is traditionally the focus of our activities. With Joachim Sieper, Denis Poddubnyy and Kay G. Hermann we already have three proven experts in the management and development team! But our users also find this disease relevant, as our download figures show. One of the greatest challenges with axSpA is undoubtedly the early diagnosis in order to intervene with a suitable therapy plan and to prevent progressive bone damage. 

With arthritis 101 and the module on sacroiliitis, we have brought two young scientists on board: Katharina Ziegeler and Juliane Greese. These modules are intended as an introduction to diagnosing rheumatic disease and offer a wealth of X-ray images for independent analysis. After answering the multiple-choice questions, we of course resolve the cases and show in detail which lesions are really relevant by using colored overlays. 

iPhones showing BerlinCaseViewer e-learning content

But there is still a lot more to discover from a total of 7 authors. Most modules are available in English and German. 

Outlook for 2021 

We’re going into the new year with anticipation and zest for action. And we are especially excited about these innovations. 

More translations 

Medical professionals and students around the world use English as a scientific language. But is that inclusive? We noticed that in order to provide targeted care to patients, you should also speak the language of the local doctors. For this reason, in the coming year, we will be increasingly cooperating with experts who translate our content into their mother tongue and also bring in their own cases, which we will, in turn, translate into English and other languages. 

Our medical learning app for Android devices 

We love the iPhone. That’s why we first developed the BerlinCaseViewer for this platform. After all, the app originally only ran internally on our training iPads. However, more people around the world use Android than iOS devices. That’s why we’re tackling it and will get our app ready for Android. This is a completely new development and will definitely accompany us throughout the year. 

Fascinating special modules 

There is already new content waiting for you on the horizon. We are currently working on modules on sacroiliitis in children and rheumatic diseases of the foot, ankle, and knee joint. With a new case of the month module, we open up the sub-specialization of thoracic and cardiovascular radiology. 

Integrate the BerlinCaseViewer on your website 

An API interface is also in the works. With this web service, you can embed our online cases into your learning project or medical blog as easily as you would integrate a YouTube video. Are you interested in visualizing medical knowledge interactively? Then get in touch with us!

Drop us a line, when you want to know more about our API or e-learning content.

Download BerlinCaseViewer

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This post is also available in: German