A few minutes in clinic, and a guide you can come back to.
A consult is short, and a procedure is a lot to take in. Pathway gives patients a model to look at in clinic and the same model online to go over at home, at their own pace.
How a model is made
Start from what the patient needs to see
Each model starts from what the doctor needs to show in a few minutes: where the problem is, the way in, what the procedure changes, and where the risks come from.
Real anatomy
The shapes come from an open anatomical atlas, so organs, bones and blood vessels sit where they really are. Parts that matter are drawn a little larger so they are easy to see.
Colours that mean something
Tissue looks like what it is. The problem is always shown in the same violet, and what the doctor puts in is clean white or steel, so you can find both on any model.
The same model in your hands and on screen
The printed model for clinic will be made from the same files as the model on this site, so the two match part for part. A first UFE model was printed from an earlier version.
Written plainly, checked, then reviewed
Guides are written at about a grade 6 reading level. They are drafted with AI writing tools from published sources and checked against those sources. Anything no source covered is listed for the interventional radiology team to decide. The team will review and sign off each guide before patients use it.
Who makes it
Pathway is a draft patient education project for interventional radiology.
- Jodh GillProject lead. Started Pathway, designed the first 3D models in Blender, and built and refined the website.
- Koah BarsteadProduction lead. 3D printing, with support on the models and the website.
- Lia McCullochQuality improvement lead. Design and website development.
What we hold ourselves to
- Plain language
- About a grade 6 reading level, short sentences, and a list of the medical words used, with what each one means.
- Accessible
- Built to WCAG 2.2 AA. Automated checks pass in light and dark. A manual audit is planned. Every guide has a text-only version, and reduced motion is respected. See the accessibility statement.
- Reviewed
- Each guide will be checked by the interventional radiology team before patients use it. The date of that review will show on the guide.
- Honest about risk
- Risks are explained plainly and calmly, next to the benefits and the other options, never in small print.
Privacy
This site collects no health information, needs no account and sets no cookies. There is no tracking. Questions you tick are saved only in your own browser, and quiz answers are not saved at all.
Like any website, the company that hosts it may keep standard access logs: your device’s internet address (IP address), the page you opened and the time. This preview is hosted outside Canada. For launch, the site can move to a server in Canada or one run by the health authority.
Credits
The 3D models and the figure on the home page are built from Z-Anatomy, an open anatomical atlas initiated by medical illustrator Gauthier Kervyn, shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. Z-Anatomy is based on BodyParts3D by the Database Center for Life Science (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.1 Japan). Some models in the atlas carry their own terms, which we are confirming before launch.
9 procedures. Guides are drafts awaiting clinical review.