Novel versus didactic teaching of an ophthalmic clinical skill to medical students: the eyeballs made easy study

Ophthalmology teaching in university medical schools is declining, despite the high caseload of ophthalmic presentations that junior doctors are known to encounter. Innovative strategies are needed to ensure students acquire core ophthalmic skills, without overburdening their curriculum. Eyeballs Made Easy (EME) is an interactive eLearning program developed by the authors to address this need. The purpose of this study was to perform a prospective, quasi-experimental study to evaluate the effectiveness of the EME program in a flipped classroom setting, in comparison to didactic teaching, for the acquisition of a clinical skill by medical students. The primary outcome was students’ performance on an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). OSCE results were used as a source of empirical evidence on students’ acquisition of a core ophthalmic clinical skill. One hundred fifty-seven medical students were taught to measure and report visual acuity using either a flipped classroom approach ( n = 68) or didactic lecture ( n = 89). Mean OSCE scores were 87.3% and 73.7% in the flipped classroom and didactic groups, respectively (13.6% difference, 95% CI [8.45,18.69], p < 0.001). These results indicated that a flipped classroom approach was superior to didactic teaching for short-term acquisition of an ophthalmic clinical skill. Feedback from students regarding the acceptability of flipped classroom teaching was positive overall, with some limitations described. These findings should encourage ophthalmic educators to incorporate flipped classroom pedagogy into clinical skills teaching for medical students.