Paying Attention To The Details.

The Michigan College of Optometry initiated a program to enhance the instruction of
ophthalmoscopy to first year students. lbis program expanded the student's knowledge and experience base of normal fundus variations by providing each student with a catalog of their classmates' retinal photographs. During ophthalmoscopy laboratories, students identified to whom each pair of unmarked photos belonged by comparing the images to views obtained through the ophthalmoscope. Instructors also received a catalog of the same images, but each image was labeled to identifY the student's name. The purpose of this key copy was to provide instructors with an overview of each student's posterior pole features, without requiring the instructor to perform ophthalmoscopy themselves, thereby reducing the time required to guide students to exemplary fundus findings in their classmates. Students were tested before initiating and after completing the program using timed, online quizzes to determine if the new methodology had any impact on developing attention to fundus details. Subjective feedback was collected from the instructors implementing the program to help determine its success.