After scrolling through endless health disinformation on the internet during the pandemic, a health sciences faculty member at the British Columbia Institute of Technology decided it was time everyone had access to vetted, reliable health information.
People sometimes lack the knowledge and skills to identify the legitimacy of the information they are consuming, so the open resource can supply the facts for people with health questions, she said. Along with co-author Helen Dyck of UBC’s pathology department, Kong collaborated with other faculty members from BCIT and UBC medical professionals in all fields — ranging from cardiac sciences to respiratory and digestive conditions — to develop a free, accessible-to-everyone multimedia textbook.
She has now applied for subsequent funding, which will help her build more chapters in the coming year.“It teaches people how the body works from the smallest level of the cell — how something that goes wrong [in a cell] can manifest into all these symptoms and clinical signs that the health care team can recognize and design some kind of treatment plan.”
The multimedia resource also features videos and interactive elements on specimens from the pathology lab — showing what various organs look like when diseased.