Transplant Pathology Internet Services (TPIS) is intended to serve as both a collaborative tool for transplantation physicians and as an educational resource for healthcare professionals interested in the field of transplantation medicine with an emphasis on pathology. We believe that the following three primary factors have resulted in the need for such a service.

1. Information Age technology now makes possible scientific collaboration and education over vast distances. The information technologies that have become available through the Internet at a rapid pace, provide new paradigms for ‘laboratory’ research where multiple collaborators can combine case material and peer review subsequent results and conclusions as they are being formulated. The work of these collaborators can then be used for distance education and awarding of continuing medical education credits for successful completion of interactive questions.
2. Complexity in assessing histopathologic features of rejection has created the need for international collaboration and standardization of criteria. The growth and maturation of transplantation have created the need for a standardized set of objective morphologic and clinical parameters that grade solid organ rejection uniformly, allowing international collaboration to more effectively define rejection. While periodic international meetings, like those held in Banff, Canada, provide a venue for developing a consensus, an ongoing electronic collaboration tool, that fully exploits currently available and affordable technologies, has the potential to evolve these criteria with broader input and at an accelerated pace.
3. Changes in academic medicine brought on by economic and political factors. The current trend in medicine toward less specialization, with government funding for subspecialty fellowships being cut in the USA, has created a need for low cost educational alternatives. This is occurring at a time when transplantation services are expanding worldwide and the need for further training in transplantation disciplines is increasing.

The seed funding for TPIS was provided by the College of American Pathologists Foundation Scholars Program and the TPIS Administration remains committed to the specific aims outlined in our proposal. These aims emphasize collaborative efforts between academic transplant centers and specifically will include:

1. Regular online case conferences of unusual and enlightening cases from transplant centers,

2. Special topics resources moderated by physicians from transplant centers who would also help designate an editorial board for electronic publishing of collaborative study findings, and

3. Original transplant pathology material that can be hypertext linked from within a Web-based customizable e-mail server and database.

The TPIS administration is committed to providing a new and valuable high quality service to the medical community utilizing the World Wide Web (WWW), and to best serve the community of users, we have included multiple hypertext links on most pages to send comments, suggestions, corrections and questions.