Clinical Skills Courses are designed to refresh and improve the clinical skills of ophthalmic assistants, technicians, and technologists. Courses take 1 to 2.5 hours to complete and include a post-test that results in a course certificate if passed.

These courses do not have continuing education (CE) credits.

Course fees range from $7 to $10 and include 2 months of access. Each course can be purchased from the course description page (links below), or more than one course can be purchased at the same time from the course catalog. On the catalog page, use the filter to show only Clinical Skills courses.

Clinical Skills Certficate Course: Anterior and Posterior Segment Anatomy and Physiology of the Eye  
This course on Anterior and Posterior Segment Anatomy and Physiology (A&P) of the eye includes discussions of the tear film, cornea, anterior chamber, aqueous humor, iris, pupil, ciliary body, lens, vitreous, retina, optic nerve, choroid, and sclera. Structure, function, examination, instrumentation, diseases, and treatments are covered.

Clinical Skills Certificate Course: A-scan Ultasonography of the Eye (Biometry) 
This course on A-scan ultrasonography of the eye (Biometry) includes discussion of basic concepts, scanning procedures, instrumentation, pseudophakic A-scan instruction, immersion A-scan instruction, intraocular lens power calculations, and A-scan biometry vs. optical biometry.

Clinical Skills Certificate Course: B-scan Ultrasonography and Ultrasound Biomicroscopy of the Eye 
This course on ocular B-scan Ultrasonography and Ultrasound Biomicroscopy of the eye includes discussion of ophthalmic ultrasound principles, instrumentation, orientation, and visualization. Examination techniques are covered. Evaluation criteria of vitreo-retinal diseases are discussed including vitreous hemorrhage, vitreous detachment, retinal detachment, choroidal detachment, optic nerve head drusen, choroidal nevus, and choroidal malignant melanoma. Ultrasound Biomicroscopy instrumentation and examination techniques are discussed with examples.

Clinical Skills Certificate Course: Basics of Photography
This course on the basics of photography includes discussion of film, digital sensors, ISO, resolution, grain, pixels, contrast, formats, shutter speed, f-number, exposure, flash, focal lengths, depth-of-field, and other factors.

Clinical Skills Certificate Course: Clinical Optics of the Eye
This course on clinical optics of the eye discusses physical, geometric, and physiologic optics. Included are discussions of lens aberrations, base curve, optical center, lens design, slab-off, optical measurements, calculations, adjustments, and formulae.

Clinical Skills Certificate Course: Contact Lenses
This course on soft and hard (RGP) contact lens fitting includes discussion of indications for wear, history taking, contact lens parameters and verification, wear and replacement schedules, anterior segment examination, fitting variables and techniques, fit evaluation, insertion and removal, lens care, fitting astigmatism, and fitting the presbyope.

Clinical Skills Certificate Course: External Eye, EOM, and Orbital Anatomy and Physiology of the Eye
This course on external eye, extraocular muscle, and orbital anatomy and physiology of the eye includes discussion of eyelids and eyelashes, conjunctiva, episclera, sclera, rectus and oblique orbital muscles, orbital regions, and sinuses. Evaluation of systems, diseases, treatments, imaging, examination, and history taking are included.

Clinical Skills Certificate Course: Extraocular Muscle Skills for Examination of the Eye
This course on extraocular muscle clinical skills for examination of the eye includes discussion of binocular vision, cover tests, the Worth 4-dot test, the red lens test, Hirshberg/Krimsky measurements, the Bagolini lens test, exophthalmometry, the Maddox Rod test and the Von Graefe technique, fusional vergence measurements, and measuring prism in glasses.

Clinical Skills Certificate Course: Fundus Photography and Fluorescein Angiography
The course on fundus photography includes discussion of instrumentation, procedures, troubleshooting, and image defects and artifacts. The course on fluorescein angiography includes discussion of preparation, the injection, the angiogram, descriptive terminology, common abnormalities, and other considerations. Next generation retinal camera features are covered. Fundus autofluorescence, RGB channel separation, and iris angiography are also discussed.

Clinical Skills Certificate Course: Glaucoma
This course on glaucoma discusses the anterior chamber and the aqueous humor, intra-ocular pressure (IOP), optic nerve head cupping, retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness, visual field loss. Also discussed are the types of glaucoma including, open angle glaucoma, primary angle-closure glaucoma, secondary glaucoma, congenital glaucoma, and secondary angle-closure glaucoma. medical and surgical treatments of glaucoma are covered.

Clinical Skills Certificate Course: History Taking and General Medical Knowledge
The course section on history taking includes discussion of chief complaint, history of present illness, review of systems, past medical history, medications, allergies, family history, social history, pertinent questions, triage, confidentiality, SOAP, and OPQRSTA. The course section on general medical knowledge includes discussion of the cardiovascular, respiratory, nervous, and endocrine systems. Anatomy, physiology, diseases and treatments are covered in overview.

Clinical Skills Certificate Course: Intraocular Lens (IOL) Calculations
This course on Intraocular Lens (IOL) Calculations discusses types of IOLs. measurements needed, insuring accuracy of measurements, calculation formulas, modifications to formulas, toric calculations, using a topographer, special situations, and evaluating a post-op surprise.

Clinical Skills Certificate Course: Ophthalmic Pharmacology
This course on ophthalmic pharmacology discusses drug components and characteristics, drug delivery methods, abbreviations, pharmacological agents used to treat ophthalmic conditions and diseases, drug actions, interactions, and allergic responses.

Clinical Skills Certificate Course: Optical Coherence Tomography
This course on optical coherence tomography discusses the technology, instrumentation, scanning techniques, qualitative and quantitative analysis, scan errors and scan optimization, scans of the macula and optic nerve head, and OCT angiography (OCT-A). The evolution of OCT technology is also discussed, including the move from time domain to spectal domain technology.

Clinical Skills Certificate Course: Refractometry (Refraction)
This course refractometry (refraction) discusses basic refraction techniques, binocular balancing, high power refractometry, cylinder power optimization, controlling accommodation, near add determination, intermediate vision lenses, characteristics of astigmatism, unusual add powers, using keratometry, the astigmatic dial, and the red-green test. A discussion of how to handle glasses complaints is included.

Clinical Skills Certificate Course: Retinoscopy
This course on retinoscopy discusses equipment and techniques for performing retinoscopy in plus cylinder and in minus cylinder form. Streak reflexes, axis identification, and neutralization are demonstrated with illustrations and animations.

Clinical Skills Certificate Course: Slit Lamp Biomicroscopy, Slit Lamp Photography, and Applanation Tonometry
The course section on slit lamp biomicroscopy and slit lamp photography includes discussion of instrumentation, viewing and illumination techniques, photo techniques, and making do without a photo slit lamp. The course section on applanation tonometry includes discussion of instrumentation, procedure, and calibration.

Clinical Skills Certificate Course: Visual Field Testing
This course on visual field testing discusses the visual pathways, visual field defects, basic concepts of visual field testing, visual field testing methods including automated perimetry, monitoring automated visual field testing for reliability, and advanced concepts in visual field testing.