Information About the Program:

Mission Statement

The optometric residency program in ocular disease at the Huntington VA Medical Center, in cooperation with the Indiana University School of Optometry, seeks to provide entry-level optometric graduates with advanced didactic knowledge and intense clinical training in the diagnosis and management of patients with ocular disease and the ocular manifestations of systemic disease.

Overview

The Program offers intense training in the advanced diagnosis and management of ocular and systemically-related ocular disease.  While the program is beneficial for any mode of practice, the program is designed at preparing residents for positions at referral/co-management centers, academic institutions, and VA facilities.  

Positions

There are three (3), paid, full-time positions available.

Curriculum Description

The curriculum of the program is composed of clinical patient care, rotations through specialty health-care services,  writing experience, and extensive didactic and educational activities.

Clinical Training

The clinical portion of the program is organized into rotations which are 3-6 weeks in length.  Each residents spends two-thirds of each rotation practicing direct patient care followed by one-third of the rotation in a medical specialty service.  There are two residents in the eye clinic at all times, providing ocular care to patients.  An example of a 6-week rotation schedule is as follows:

        Daily Schedules

The daily schedule for each resident in the eye clinic is as follows:

Each resident has his/her own examination room for the year.  And when assigned to patient care, each resident has his/her own clinical patient schedule.  Patients are scheduled for the residents according to the schedule above.  In addition to scheduled patients, the residents are responsible for all ocular triage and emergent consultative requests at the Medical Center, including consultations on the inpatient wards.  Outside of normal clinic hours, one resident is on-call 24 hours per day for ocular emergencies that present to the emergency room.  Staff optometrists are available for consultation and supervision at all times.

        Specialty Service Training

During their training with the medical specialty services, residents become an interactive member of each specialty team.  This training is designed to improve residents' inter-professional communication as well as enhance their knowledge and understanding of systemic disease, including etiology, pharmacology, and treatment modalities.  Specialty services may include: radiology, vascular clinic, rheumatology, geriatrics, endocrine, surgery, laboratory, neurology, infectious disease, cardiology, outpatient care, internal medicine, and emergency services.

The daily schedule for the resident on rotation with the services as follows:

There are specific learning goals and objectives for each of the specialties with which the residents spend time.  This gives the rotation educational direction as well as tasks to be accomplished with each rotation.

Didactic Education

The didactic portion of the program includes attending and participating in several conferences, giving presentations and lectures, some experience precepting students, and research.  The resident's didactic requirements include:

            1) Grand Rounds with other residents in 

                    the medical center (medicine, pharmacy, etc.)

            2) Fluorescein Conference, discussing a variety of presented

                    angiograms as well as studies performed in the clinic during the

                    preceding week

            3) Grand Rounds/Continuing Education Lectures with the eye clinic staff

            4) Resident-Student Disease Conference - led by the residents, providing

                    additional teaching opportunities 

The daily schedule for these activities is as follows:

Publishing/Writing Experience

Residents are required to write one paper of publishable quality to be submitted to a professional journal.  It may be a  research paper, case report, or be an original article pertaining to ocular disease.  Residents are also strongly encouraged to present posters or lectures at educational conferences including the American Academy of Optometry Meeting and SECO.

Resident Supervision Policy

Residents, in the performance of their clinical duties, are responsible to the attending/supervising staff optometrist or assigned physician of the service through which they are rotating.  All aspects of resident-patient care are carefully monitored through ongoing Resident Supervision Monitors.  Each day, an assigned staff optometrist is responsible for the supervision, consultation, and co-signature of every resident-patient encounter.

Clinical Privileges

The clinical privileges and extent of direct supervision of each resident are determined by their own Graduated Level of Responsibility.  The residency in ocular disease is structured to allow the residents to individually assume increasing levels of clinical responsibility commensurate with their specific progress in experience, skill, knowledge, and judgement.  The residents are required to perform clinical procedures under direct staff supervision and obtain approval before performing them independently.

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