Mission

Our mission is to educate the next generation of eye professionals while striving to improve eye health in the region by providing trusted high-quality eye care for the indigent inner city population, innovating and making discoveries.

Program Aims

The main goal of our program is to produce physicians who will take the foundation of a broad education in ophthalmology to improve eye health through patient care, research and learning. However, our program also aims to:

• Provide a supportive learning environment that encourages personal growth and high standards.
• Support an environment capable of caring for a patient population with diverse medical and surgical conditions and disorders, thus enabling trainees to gain experience in a broad range of pathological conditions.
• Promote lifelong learning.
• Provide faculty mentors who serve as role models for professionalism, patient care and communication.
• Educate residents on the basics of medical research and provide opportunities for trainees to engage in clinical research.

Goals and Objectives

The goal of the ophthalmology residency program is to provide residents with not only a comprehensive education in the medical and surgical aspects of ophthalmology and training in various subspecialties, but also experience in practice/business management. Graduates will be able to practice competently and independently and be well qualified to pursue subspecialty fellowship training.

The clinical rotations are designed to provide graduated responsibility to the residents during the three years of training with specific competency-based goals and objectives in each year. Throughout the training, residents have direct or indirect faculty supervision in all their patient care activities.

In the first year (PGY-2) of training, each resident spends 12 months in comprehensive ophthalmology. This year provides an opportunity to develop competency in basic ophthalmic examination skills, including diagnostic instrumentation. The resident also develops competency in managing all uncomplicated, non-surgical ophthalmic emergencies and basic surgical techniques. They also get initial exposure to all subspecialties such as vitreo-retinal diseases, neuro-ophthalmology, oculoplastics, anterior segment diseases/glaucoma and pediatric ophthalmology.

The second year (PGY-3) is geared towards providing exclusive training in different subspecialty areas of ophthalmology: retina (surgical and medical) and electrophysiology, cornea and external diseases, glaucoma, contact lenses and low vision, neuroophthalmology, oculoplastics and pediatric ophthalmology. Each resident rotates in different subspecialty clinics, performs surgeries and laser procedures and handles all routine consults during clinic hours and emergency consults during after hours, while on call.

The third year of training (PGY-4) is aimed towards mastering all aspects of medical ophthalmic care and management of the patient utilizing sound judgment and ethically based decision making. It also includes supervision of junior residents in all areas, covering on-call responsibilities and acquiring proficiency in ophthalmic surgery. Third-year residents are exposed to a combination of comprehensive and subspecialty education as well as gain mastery on how to deal with all routine and emergency ophthalmology scenarios. The two senior residents share the position of "Chief Resident" for six months each and assist in the administration of the program.

All consults are handled by the resident on call with direct and indirect supervision by the senior resident and attending on call.