Method for automatically loading medical image data from a central image data memory into a working memory with the aid of a load module in order to make said data available to an image processing program, wherein the image data are generated from raw data of a medical imaging system during the scanning of an object and the image data assigned to a respective object in each case comprises metadata and pixel data, characterised in that - the image data is assigned with the aid of a data type assignment module to one data type (A1...A4) out of a plurality of possible data types (A1...A4), wherein the data type (A1...A4) is determined from a) volume image data based on individual slice images as first data type, b) volume image data based on multiframe image data as second data type, c) image data conforming to the whole slide imaging standard within the DICOM standard as the data type, d) projection image data as fourth data type, - subsequently a default loading strategy assigned to the identified data type (A1...A4) is selected out of a plurality of data-type-specific default loading strategies (L1...L4), - the image data is additionally assigned context data and the default loading strategy is specified and a modified loading strategy (L1'...L4') is determined on the basis of the context data and utilised for loading the image data, wherein - a shared index is created for the image data of a plurality of medical objects with the aid of an index generator or an existing index is incremented, wherein associated context data is assigned to the image data of a respective object via the index and wherein the index is accessed in order to determine the context data, and - the image data is loaded into the working memory for the image processing by means of the modified loading strategy (L1'...L4'). - the image data is assigned with the aid of a data type assignment module to one data type (A1...A4) out of a plurality of possible data types (A1...A4), wherein the data type (A1...A4) is determined from a) volume image data based on individual slice images as first data type, b) volume image data based on multiframe image data as second data type, c) image data conforming to the whole slide imaging standard within the DICOM standard as the data type, d) projection image data as fourth data type, a) volume image data based on individual slice images as first data type, b) volume image data based on multiframe image data as second data type, c) image data conforming to the whole slide imaging standard within the DICOM standard as the data type, d) projection image data as fourth data type, - subsequently a default loading strategy assigned to the identified data type (A1...A4) is selected out of a plurality of data-type-specific default loading strategies (L1...L4), - the image data is additionally assigned context data and the default loading strategy is specified and a modified loading strategy (L1'...L4') is determined on the basis of the context data and utilised for loading the image data, wherein - a shared index is created for the image data of a plurality of medical objects with the aid of an index generator or an existing index is incremented, wherein associated context data is assigned to the image data of a respective object via the index and wherein the index is accessed in order to determine the context data, and - the image data is loaded into the working memory for the image processing by means of the modified loading strategy (L1'...L4'). - a shared index is created for the image data of a plurality of medical objects with the aid of an index generator or an existing index is incremented, wherein associated context data is assigned to the image data of a respective object via the index and wherein the index is accessed in order to determine the context data, and - the image data is loaded into the working memory for the image processing by means of the modified loading strategy (L1'...L4').