A unique new educational website created by the John A. Moran Eye Center at the University of Utah supports both medical providers in developing nations and U.S. primary care physicians who are the first line of defense against eye disease.
Moran CORE (Clinical Ophthalmology Resource for Education), morancore.utah.edu, is the first multimedia ophthalmology education resource of its kind. The site is not only open-access and peer-reviewed, its content complements the field's main curricula from the American Academy of Ophthalmology and International Council of Ophthalmology.
Moran CORE empowers international physicians like Saiko Mangumbe, MD, a third-year resident from Zimbabwe observing at Moran.
"I use it to learn surgical procedures because the videos are so clear and the procedures so well-explained that, with some guidance, it is easy to follow the steps," said Mangumbe, 32. "The website is also easy to access, wherever you are."
More international medical professionals like Mangumbe must be trained to build access to eye care where it's desperately needed but they can't all come to Moran.
"Access to high-quality learning is one of the first steps in addressing curable blindness on a global scale, and CORE provides that," said Moran Eye Center Director of Education Jeff Pettey, MD, who also serves as co-medical director of Moran's Global Outreach Division.
For medical students, a unique section of the website provides general ophthalmology knowledge such as how to give an eye exam that's disappearing from general medical education.
"Not every medical student does an ophthalmology rotation these days and some programs have even distilled the eye down to just three or four lectures," said Moran's Griffin Jardine, MD. "But there are so many systemic diseases that show up first in the eyes. The more a primary care physician knows about how to filter out urgent or non-urgent eye conditions, the better it is for patients."
Moran CORE offers a diverse array of resources for learners, including:
- Hour-long grand rounds presentations, given weekly at Moran
- Instructional surgical videos and medical photography, collected from more than 7,000 surgeries and 100,000 patient visits at Moran each year
- More than 250 Moran faculty lectures given to residents during the first two years of residency
- Medical student training in basic eye care
- International curriculum, including best practices for outreach work
Produced in partnership with the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library, the site welcomes submissions from faculty, fellows, residents, and students in the U.S. and abroad.
"Moran CORE has been designed with usability in mind, and it's already gaining traction," said Kathleen B. Digre, MD, chair of the Moran CORE Website Committee. "To date, we've had visitors to the site from 133 different countries. Our goal is to be a permanent learning and reference tool that's changing eye care, and we're already on our way."