Resources

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Venns Puzzle 1

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Learning requires us to form robust connections between new information and existing information. I’ve been experimenting with ideas on how to test knowledge and conceptual understanding, and this is one of those ideas.

Unlike a similar party game, in which you have a finite set of categories and the goal is to select two categories for a randomly chosen term, this game presents you with two categories in which there are already terms selected. Your job is to identify the categories based on the terms listed in each circle, and then identify the intersecting terms. The number lets you know the minimum number of terms that should be in the intersection.

Can you solve this puzzle? What do you think of this study approach?

Daily Study Calendar

Among the many crazy ideas and projects I have bouncing around in my head, I’ve wanted to develop a daily study calendar.

I’ve received a lot of feedback over the years that some of the major challenges to learning ophthalmology include the overwhelming volume and the lack of overall structure in how to study the material comprehensively. Bhullar and Venkateswaran argue this in a 2022 review article (1). While there are many general reading schedules and suggested options available (some here for free!), these still only direct the learner to textbook pages, with little instruction on how and what to study.

So although this is a massive undertaking, I started thinking of how I would design a step-by-step curriculum for a pre-ophthalmology (PGY-1) or first-year ophthalmology (PGY-2) resident. My goals were to:

  • Cover all the major topics in ophthalmology at least once

  • Span around 30-35 weeks (July 1 to OKAP in mid-March is about 37-38 weeks) to allow sufficient time for review

  • Specify learning goals for each day to direct attention to important concepts and topics

  • Allot for an average daily study time of one hour on work days, 3-4 hours on the weekends (including one day off per week for either no study or unstructured study)

  • Incorporate active learning techniques such as generation, elaboration, effortful recall, spaced repetition, and interleaving

The result is a 35-week study calendar that covers the majority of ophthalmology topics 2-3 times. This allows residents who are planning on taking exams in mid-March to start studying at the beginning of July and finish the study calendar with 2-3 weeks remaining for review.

Because learning is an iterative process, the first four weeks are structured as an “introduction to ophthalmology" and covers the afferent visual pathway, eye movements, periocular anatomy and function, and intraocular anatomy and function. These fundamentals are reviewed in subsequent weeks as we dive into most common conditions in ophthalmology (ordered anatomically), and followed by a deeper dive into the “high-yield” topics in each subspecialty.

The challenge with this approach, of course, is that the textbook correlation may be more scattered and voluminous. After all, some sections may reference almost a hundred pages of textbook in a single day, which is not a really feasible prospect.

So, as an attempt to make each day’s reading more accessible (and to the level of detail I was intending), I put together a sample section to see if this would be helpful.

Let me know what you think in the comments below! You can also reach me by email at ophthreview [at] gmail [dot] com, @ophthalmologyreview on Facebook, or @ophthreview on Twitter, Mastodon (@med-mastodon.com), or Instagram.

  1. Paramjit K. Bhullar & Nandini Venkateswaran (2023) Ophthalmology Residency in the United States: The Case for a National Curriculum, Seminars in Ophthalmology, DOI: 10.1080/08820538.2022.2152713

Community Preview!

We’ve had a great first month in the Ophthalmology Review Community!

The How To Learn Ophthalmology course has launched, and all 24 lessons are ready! I still have some videos to edit/upload, but the transcripts are available for viewing.

We had an awesome live session learning how to learn concepts from the BCSC Fundamentals textbook and answered some great questions - it’s inspired this month’s live session, which will discuss how to learn from our clinical encounters.

I’m currently putting together 2 new courses for the community - a 9-module, 31-lesson course on the 8-point eye exam detailing the eye exam and practical tips for learning how to perform different parts of the eye exam, and a 4-module, 24-lesson course on visual fields.

I hope to continue adding more content, both specific to ophthalmic disease and ophthalmic skills, as I work more on building up the community. I’d love to devote more time to creating these tools and resources with more support, so consider joining the community today!

Joining will get you access to these courses and all future courses, input on resources I’m creating, live sessions, archived live sessions, and direct chat with me on any questions you might have about ophthalmology, board exams, OKAP, or even getting involved in national/international societies!

As a preview, here is one of the lessons from the How To Learn Ophthalmology course:

Study Methods Preferred By Ophthalmology Learners

Background

There are a wide variety of options for learning ophthalmology now. There are more textbooks and review books available now than ever before; podcasts, YouTube channels, and many other forms of media also provide new streams of innovative content.

Over the last 6-7 years since I started Ophthalmology Review, I’ve enjoyed trying different methods of developing useful content - from directly translating my notes from residency, to creating tables and picmonics, writing review articles, etc. - I’m constantly thinking of how to teach the incredible field of ophthalmology.

However, sometimes it’s hard to know exactly what people find most useful, and what may be helpful for one person may not be for another. So in my continuous search for content ideas, I wanted to know what study tools the readers of this website find most helpful.

Ophthalmology Study Topic Checklist

Check out a new resource I’ve created - a checklist that covers over 3000+ topics in ophthalmology, with page references from the latest editions of the Basic and Clinical Science Course, Review of Ophthalmology, and Kanski’s Clinical Ophthalmology! If you’re having a hard time getting started with learning/studying ophthalmology or want a handy way of making sure you’ve covered the high-yield topics in ophthalmology, this tool may be really helpful!

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Random Topic Generator

I’m happy to announce that I’ve completed a random topic generator that covers all of the various topics discussed in the AAO’s Basic and Clinical Science Course textbooks (excluding the General Medicine volume). It’s been a while since I’ve coded to this extent so this version is very basic - I’ve included all topics listed in the BCSC (including references such as glossaries and procedure instructions), and I haven’t assigned any priorities to certain topics, which means that there is theoretically an equal chance of getting keratoconus as there is getting molecular genetics testing modalities.

Eventually I’d like to prioritize topics to a certain degree, which may also take into account stage of training (a first-year resident may need to review anatomy a lot more than a recent graduate) as well as type of knowledge (how to perform surgery is probably learned hands-on rather than from a textbook).

I’m working closely with the AAO on projects similar to this, and so eventually this project may be added to one of the resources the Academy offers. Stay tuned for more developments!

Neuro-Ophthalmology Lectures by Dr. Andrew Lee

Dr. Andrew (Andy) Lee is a highly-accomplished and distinguished neuro-ophthalmologist. He is well-regarded as one of the leading neuro-ophthalmologists in the world, and is also a fantastic educator and lecturer. He has a YouTube channel that I highly encourage everyone to watch, as he distills complex neuro-ophthalmologic concepts into digestible 3-5 minute talks. Some of the videos don’t have great audio, and he keeps things pretty low-tech (the videos are filmed on a cell phone while he draws on a whiteboard), but the information he provides is all high-yield and high-quality - and best of all, free.

I had the privilege of hearing him give a series of neuro-ophthalmology reviews for an OKAP/board review course I took during residency, which significantly helped me understand neuro-ophthalmology in my studies. I think this channel is yet another incredible way he is giving back and providing practical and useful knowledge about neuro-ophthalmology. You’ll probably see me link to his videos where applicable when I’m writing about neuro-ophthalmology. Check it out!

Mini-Atlas

I’m working on some review courses that may be helpful in your studies! One of the things I think is critical for learning and reviewing ophthalmology is having ample amounts of images that can help solidify your pattern-recognition, since ophthalmology is a very visually-oriented specialty (no pun intended).

So as part of my work on creating the course, I am curating as many freely-available images as I can find. While some are completely free to use, other images are free to use for educational purposes (via Creative Commons licenses and the like).

You can find the images here. While it’s not meant to become an atlas like some other great sites out there, hopefully it can serve as yet another resource for finding high-quality images for various diseases you’re trying to look up.

It’s been a very slow process, but I plan to add more links and images as I go. If there’s a topic you’d like me to focus on, let me know in the comments section or contact me!

Ophthalmology Basics Study Guide

I just released a new study guide for the "basics" of ophthalmology (anatomy, embryology, pharmacology, and principles of pathology) as part of my plan to format and release my notes from residency. It's been a slow process, but depending on the feedback and response I'll work on releasing study guides for other subjects within Ophthalmology!