About Slice of Life

What is "Slice of Life"?

An annual conference at which medical and health science educators and developers gather from around the world to explore and share the uses of multimedia and information technology in medical education.  The focus is on cutting edge developments, implementation of courseware, eLearning, web enhanced curricula, wireless mobile computing, graphic design, animation and digital video.  Curricular integration, sharing and evaluation are central themes.  Think of the many ways you can contribute and learn!  The complete conference program will be posted in March.

JOIN THE OFFICIAL SLICE OF LIFE EMAIL LIST! This list is moderated and sends only the most important announcements. You will not get spammed by joining the list, you will get all the important announcements. There is NO printed information about this meeting, only electronic information.

The 17th annual Slice of Life Workshop is hosted by the Oregon Health and Science University and the main session will be at Doubletree Hotel, Portland Oregon.

The program always has two major parts:  

(1) Optional hands-on and/or lecture/demonstration pre-workshop tutorials for a half or full day at Oregon Health and Science University, June 14-15, 2005. There is an additional fee for these.

(2) Two and one-half days of auditorium presentations, electronic demonstrations and posters, breakout sessions and special interest groups on June 16-18, 2005.

PRE-MEETING WORKSHOPS:  Hands-on and lecture/demo pre-workshop tutorials, where you can learn in depth about new multimedia techniques from an international group of experts. Workshops range from introductory to advanced. The user audience is listed for each.

AUDITORIUM PRESENTATIONS - THURSDAY, FRIDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS:  Featuring a daily invited keynote speaker and selected 20 minutes presentations, where you can benefit from the view points of experienced specialists in a cooperative atmosphere. Presentations are brief so that you can identify individuals you want to speeak to in depth at another time. There are NO concurrent auditorium presentations, to maximize interactivity.

SHOW AND TELL ELECTRONIC DEMONSTRATIONS and ELECTRONIC POSTERS:  Meet the creators of innovative software solutions and courseware.

BREAKOUT SESSIONS: These noon discussions with lunch permit continued discussion of controversial or breaking new topics. Morning speakers often continue to answer questions and debate issues. Topics of more technical interest can be focused on too.

SOCIAL EVENTS: Great company, continental breakfast, lots of coffee, lunches with colleagues and hospitality with delicious food and drink are daily events. Plan to attend our traditional Welcome Dinner on Thursday evening as well as the Grand Extravaganza from noon until late Saturday night.

The Slice of Life Workshop launched at the Eccles Library at the University of Utah in 1988 has traveled annually to locations around the world. The Archives of past programs and topics can be accessed for a sample of topics and projects. From 1998-2001, the Slice of Life Workshop combined with the Computers in Healthcare Education Symposium (CHES) at Thomas Jefferson University.  Click here for earlier history of the Slice of Life Project and early meetings (preweb!)

• WHAT IS THE "SLICE OF LIFE" WORKSHOP?
• WHO ARE THE KNOWLEDGE WEAVERS?
• WHY IS THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAL MEDICAL COLLEGES HANDLING THE ABSTRACT SUBMISSION AND REGISTRATION?
• Program Committee
• Logistics
• Local Host Committee

What is the "Slice of Life" Workshop?

The group began as contributors and users of the "Slice of Life" videodisc!!  (For more history and information see the Slice of Life videodisc web site.) We like the name, and we still occasionally use the resource to grab images!   For more than sixteen years, developers of medical multimedia and interested new-comers have gathered together internationally at the Slice of Life Workshop to share ideas and:

• Hear and see new technology for medical/health applications.
• Demo new multimedia teaching programs or tools they've made/bought/sold.
• Share innovations for the world wide web, distance education and asynchronous learning.
• Attend in depth demonstrations or hands-on "Pre-Conference" Workshops.
• Acknowledge and encourage student participation with the award of a $1,000 cash prize for the most outstanding student project.
• Demonstrate the tools, programs and projects they have been working on.
• Discuss strategies for getting new technologies incorporated into the curriculum.
• Share software and ideas as well as problems and solutions.
• Share evaluation data.
• Meet others with similar interests with whom they can network throughout the year.

Who were the Knowledge Weavers?

The Knowledge Weavers team included information management specialists, Web programmers and designers, and multimedia production artists.  Their goal was to provide health sciences educators with high quality, Web-based multimedia resources that can be used for a variety of educational purposes.  With grants from NLM, many projects have been undertaken for educational use by anyone.  While the funding is over, the created resources continue to be available. Sharon Dennis (former PI) at the University of Utah Eccles Health Sciences Library has for the past several years continued the tradition of producing some of the pre-conference workshops. Learn more about them at the Knowledge Weavers Website.

Why is the Association of American Medical Colleges Handling the Abstract Submission and Registration?

In 1997, Suzanne Stensaas was about to say "no more Slices of Life". It took too much time and energy. Marianne Messer and others from Gold Standard Multimedia were at the 1997 Chicago meeting and found it so exciting that they said, "we could help you do this in Tampa in 1998". The 1998 Slice of Life-Gold Standard collaboration was so successful that we decided to let the "pros" continue to design the web site and handle the registration, credit cards, accounting and many of the logistics through 2004. We feel very fortunate to have had collaborators who, incidentally, also happened to be vendors of multimedia medical education products! Currently, Gold Standard Multimedia has moved in the direction of Pharmacology and we needed another partner. The AAMC has offered to do the meeting planning, logistics, abstract submission and registration. This leaves Suzanne free to work on the program together with the local OHSU hosts and the HEAL team. HEAL is the Health Education Assest Library a collborative project among universities to create an open and free web site for the cataloging and retrieval of multimedia for health education. Many of the contributors and collaborators of HEAL came from friendships and collaborations conceived atSlice of Life Workshops.

Program Committee

• Suzanne Stensaas, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
• Paul Burrows, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
• Sharon Dennis, HEAL, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
• Sebastian Uijtdehaage, HEAL, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
• William Hersh , Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine, Portland, OR
• Edward J Keenan, Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine, Portland, OR
• Chris Candler, consultant, AAMC
• Albert Salas, AAMC Division of Medical Education, Washington, DC
• Grace C. Huang, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA

Photos Top:  Left Suzanne Stensaas at the Amsterdam 2004 meeting, Right Ed Keenan, Associate Dean, Medical Education, OHSU Photo Bottom Left: Vicki Fields Assistant Dean for Medical Education and Bob Oster, Head of IT for the Medical School, OHSU Photo Bottom Right: Paul Burrows, Workshop Leader at every single (17) Slice Workshop!

Logistics Team from AAMC

• Kirsten Olean, AAMC Director, Section for Professional Education Programs
• Stacia Gueriguian, AAMC Section on Conference Planning
• Al Salas, AAMC Division of Medical Education, Abstract Submission, Registration

Kirsten Olean and Al Salas during site visit to OHSU campus 

Local Host Committee

• Edward J Keenan, Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine, Portland, OR
• William Hersh , Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine, Portland, OR
• Vicki Fields, Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine, Portland, OR