Teaching funduscopy to undergraduate medical students: trends in the literature

ABSTRACT Introduction: Funduscopy is a skill that should be utilized by medical professionals, especially in clinical contexts associated with systemic arterial hypertension (SAH), diabetes mellitus (DM) and neurological conditions. The teaching of this topic in medical undergraduate courses is a recurring subject in the literature, including approaches that consider not only the teaching of direct ophthalmoscopy (DO) but also techniques based on obtaining and analyzing images of the fundus. Objective: To identify and analyze experiences and trends in the literature on the teaching of funduscopy in medical undergraduate courses. Method: Bibliographic research comprising articles published in the period from 2013 to 2023. Results: A total of 44 articles were selected through the review. The use of simulators and fundus images captured with devices coupled to cell phone cameras were teaching resources used in a large number of studies (52.3% of articles) with positive conclusions about the use of these elements for learning funduscopy. Direct ophthalmoscopy continues to be a recommended technique, although most studies identify difficulties in its learning and performance. Most research used controlled environments, had little follow-up time to ascertain the efficiency of the teaching processes and lacked uniform and clear educational objectives and learning methodologies that should be used in teaching funduscopy. Only two studies were carried out in authentic care environments. Conclusion: There are several experiences reported on the teaching of funduscopy supported by various resources that proved to be pedagogically appropriate. Longitudinal and methodologically uniform studies must be conducted to obtain reproducible and comparable results that can warrant better efficiency in the teaching of funduscopy in medical education.