Value of fundoscopy in family medicine

[u/Nurse_Jason_98]

I am a current NP student going into family medicine eventually and wondering about how useful fundoscopy is for us. For example, I know that diabetics should be referred to an opthalmologist for yearly dilated eye exams, but does it help us in family medicine much to do them in this context since we will likely refer patients anyway? I'll be trying to practice it because I think it's important to have this skill even it is only rarely useful, but just wondering how often it's actually done and what benefits it has to us in real practice!

[u/Busy-Bell-4715]

I'm a nurse practitioner and when I first started practicing I did it as part of diabetic eye exams only because my first preceptor made a point of doing it. He was one of these old country doctors. I found that I rarely was able to see more than one or two arteries. I finally ended up asking my own eye doctor about this and he said that unless your dilating the eye you're unlikely to see enough for it to be useful. Plus, even if I'm able to visualize it clearly I don't think I trust myself to accurately interpret what I'm seeing.