Dr Tina Gao (centre) with SOVS students.

Dr Tina Gao, a lecturer at the School of Optometry and Vision Science (SOVS) at Auckland University, is developing a video game to teach optometry clinical case analysis skills.

The optometry video game was inspired by a prototype developed three to four years ago by the University’s School of Pharmacy, said Gao. “Although it’s not the first video game approach to clinical teaching in general, as far as I know it’s the first video game specific for optometry teaching.”

The narrative-based video game is similar to a ‘choose your own adventure’ story, where students navigate through an eye exam from start to finish, making decisions along the way as they would when examining a real patient in a clinical setting.

“In traditional, pre-clinical teaching of case analysis skills, students are presented with clinical data from a completed examination and discuss the case in groups, either within tutorial sessions or as take-home assignments. When faced with a real patient, however, students do not have the luxury of taking hours to study the eye exam results. Instead, decisions such as what clinical tests to conduct, differential diagnosis and formulating management plans must be done on-their-feet, in parallel to performing tests and communicating with the patient,” said Dr Gao. “The video game aims to simulate this step-by-step clinical decision-making process, forcing students to balance the thoroughness of their clinical testing with time-keeping requirements, and providing feedback about their decisions via patient outcomes.”

The video game is currently being tested on SOVS staff and students. “Their feedback has been positive, though they’ve already requested a lot more features!” Dr Gao said. “Based on the feedback, I think the game will be valuable for students at a range of levels, both as a tool to immediately apply what they learnt in lectures and later on as a revision tool.”

The video game has already received interest from Australian optometry schools, she added, and there are plans to expand the programme to include a shared library of diverse case scenarios, pending further funding.