Abstract
Challenges in teaching of eye examination
Teaching of eye examinations has been challenging for undergraduate medical students:
(1) Very limited opportunities for hands-on examinations during busy clinic;
(2) Very limited interactions as medical students lack background knowledge;
(3) Significant increase of undergraduate medical student since academic year 2019;
(4) Impossible to allow each student to examine each patient with positive physical findings due to discomfort and delay in clinic flow.
COVID-19 Outbreak
All clinical attachments are suspended. Online learning may replace didactic teaching, but not eye examinations which often require some hands-on or at least “in-person” experience.
Our proposal
(1) 360-degree eye examination videos production: We propose to work with ELITE – Centre for eLearning Innovation and Technology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong to record high-resolution, 360-degree video so students can improve their understanding of how eye examinations are done in real life. 360-degree videos allow different viewing angles, zoom in and out from the examiners, subjects and observers’ perspective which can be viewed on regular monitor using simple mouse control. Step-by-step annotation during the videos will help the students to understand each step, interpret findings and correlate with anatomical figures, radiological images. The following 5 sets of eye examinations will be produced:
(i) visual function
(ii) eye movement
(iii) eyelid and orbit examination,
(iv) direct ophthalmoscopy
(v) basic slit-lamp
(2) Online teaching with flipped classrooms: All videos will be posted online for students’ self-study prior to the tutorial for detailed discussion with the teachers.
ImpactThe online 360-degree eye examination videos are the best “in-person” alternatives due to the suspension of clinical attachment. Furthermore, they will continue to serve as important tools even after the resumption of clinical attachments. In the long run, online 360-degree eye examination videos allow comprehensive coverage of important eye examinations and serve as easy-to-access platforms for revision as needed.
Brief write-up
Project objectives
Produce a serial of 360-degree eye examinations videos, conversion to online platform (Blackboard) and implementation of online teaching with students’ feedback.
Activities, process and outcomes
A series of online 360-degree videos teaching of eye examinations for the course “Senior Surgical Dressership” (MEDU4710) as supplementary materials is uploaded from 6 September 2020 to 5 October 2020.
Deliverables and evaluation
For the result of the post activity questionnaire, with 9% agree, 27% neutral, and 64% unanswered, on the question of “360-degree video teaching of eye examinations allow me to learn without standard class timetable time constraints” and “360-degree video teaching of eye examinations allow me to conveniently review the eye examination methods and techniques”.
And for the question, “360-degree video teaching of eye examinations allow me to better understand how eye examinations are done in real life”, there are 9% agree on it, 18% neutral, and 72% unanswered.
Dissemination, diffusion, impact and sharing of good practices
• Maintain infection control in eye examination filming: arranged the shooting during the non-clinical time and follow the most updated infection control measures, like checking temperature and hand hygiene.
• Strengthen the communication between the doctors and photographers: photographers to experience first-hand when shooting on-site and let them understand the key points of the actual examination step by step from the doctors’ perspective
Impact on teaching and learning
Online teaching can increase the flexibility of teaching location and time, which can make learning occur at times that are more convenient and productive for both students and teachers. Teachers can work at their own pace within a given framework. The online learning and teaching engagement process can be broken into smaller, more frequent portions of time, with an opportunity for reflection in between.
