The Ophthalmology Residency is a three-year program designed to provide intensive clinical training in an academic environment which encourages close interaction between the residents and faculty. Three residents are accepted each year.

• Current Residents

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Clinical Facilities

The Stanford School of Medicine uses three institutions as education resources for its residency programs.

• The Stanford University Medical Center includes the Stanford University Hospital (which serves as both a university and community hospital), the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, and the Stanford Clinics. Both Stanford and Lucile Packard eye clinics serve the surrounding community in addition to being highly specialized tertiary care centers.
• The Veterans Administration Medical Center, just ten minutes away, serves as the referral center for a large portion of California. The VA Medical Center built new state-of-the-art hospital and clinic facilities in 1998.
• The Santa Clara Valley Medical Center is the county hospital for San Jose, a metropolitan area of over 1,000,000 people. Its busy clinics serve a large indigent population with a mix of many immigrant groups. The Valley Medical Center has recently opened a new hospital and surgical facility.

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Components of Residency Training

Didactic instruction includes attendance (without charge, as a part of the residency) at the one-month Bay Area Ophthalmology Course (BAOC) at Stanford, rotation through the in-house ophthalmic pathology laboratory, and an ongoing program of weekly grand rounds and conferences that cover all subspecialties. Clinical training is split between the three Stanford-affiliated hospitals and includes speciality clinics in retina, cornea and refractive surgery, cataract management, glaucoma, pediatrics and strabismus, neuro-ophthalmology, oculoplastics, and uveitis, as well as extensive surgical experience in general and subspecialty ophthalmology. The residents and faculty work together within a common eye clinic facility at all three hospitals, and there are no outside faculty practices. There are also no regular clinical fellowships, so that residents participate in the care of complex subspecialty patients. Residents are encouraged to pursue research projects and to seek post-residency fellowships; however, the first priority of the program is to insure the highest level of clinical knowledge and skill.

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Clinical Rotations

The Stanford program is designed to provide a progression of clinical and surgical skills. All of the clinics at the Stanford teaching hospitals are extremely busy, and generate roughly 52,000 outpatient visits and 1100 major surgical procedures annually.

First-year residents spend the initial month of their residency studying the fundamentals of ophthalmology in the Bay Area Ophthalmology Course (BAOC) and in a special series of conferences and hands-on workshops that introduce the basic techniques of clinical care. First-year residents start at Stanford on the Cornea and Pathology rotation, and split the rest of the year between the general clinics at our other affiliated hospitals. This provides a variety of patient care experiences including a crowded county hospital, management of chronic and age-related disease in the VA population, and specialized referrals and complex private care in the Stanford and Children's Hospital eye clinics. Residents begin to perform eye surgery in the first year, including minor procedures, such as pterygium and chalazion excision, as well as cataract surgery.

Second-year residents spend two-thirds of the year on subspecialty services at Stanford and Children's Hospital. These include retina, glaucoma, pediatric ophthalmology and strabismus, oculoplastics, and uveitis. They also have one rotation at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center to improve clinical skills and to begin major responsibilities as a surgeon.

Third-year residents serve as the chief resident at each hospital for one-third of the year. They do a large volume of primary surgery (typically over 120 cataracts, several hundred laser procedures, and multiple subspecialty procedures). They also teach the junior residents in each hospital, and take administrative responsibility for clinics and conferences.

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Didactic Instruction

The Bay Area Ophthalmology Course (BAOC) is held each summer at Stanford. It is a one-month fulltime didactic course with lectures and laboratories. Incoming Stanford residents are sponsored by the department to attend the course. There are also Grand Rounds, a regular Mortality and Morbidity conference, and an ongoing program of weekly clinical and didactic conferences that rotate among the specialties.

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Research

The department faculty is involved in a variety of clinical and basic research projects. Residents are expected to participate in research throughout their residency, within the limitations of clinical responsibilities. They are asked each year to develop and pursue an investigative research project (experimental or clinical) in conjunction with a faculty member of their choice. The results of this research are presented at a special Resident Research Conference held each June. Residents will be sponsored to attend ARVO or comparable major research meetings to present their work.

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Amenities

The Stanford-Palo Alto areas is one of the great places to live in the US, with fine weather, cultural opportunities at Stanford and in San Francisco, and easy access to every type of sports and outdoor activity.

Residents are paid competitive salaries according to the scale of the Stanford University Hospital.

Residents get three weeks of vacation each year, one during each of three annual service rotations.

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Residency Application Process

The Department of Ophthalmology offers a three-year approved residency training program. Three first-year residents enter the program each July. Appointments to the residency program are made one and one-half years in advance through the Ophthalmology Matching Program.

Requirements

Applicants must meet the following requirements to be eligible for the residency:

• Graduation from an LCME accredited medical school in the United States or Canada
• Possess or be eligible for a California medical license.
• Satisfactory completion of a PGYI year in an accredited program in the United States or Canada which includes a minimum of six months of broad experience in patient care.
• In exceptional circumstances, graduates of foreign medical schools may be considered for the residency if they have already obtained an Applicant Evaluation Status Letter or a California license from the Medical Board of California. For further information contact:

  Medical Board of California
  1426 Howe Avenue
  Sacramento, California 95825
  (916) 263-2344

Applications

Applications are accepted only through the

Ophthalmology Matching Program
PO Box 7584
San Francisco, California 94120-7584

The OMP usually begins distributing applications the first of July. Our deadline for receiving applications from OMP is October 3, 2011 (allow at least two weeks from date material arrives at the OMP to the date we receive the application.) Applications that are incomplete by the deadline will not be considered, and no supplemental material is required or accepted.

Interviews

After a careful review of the applications by faculty, approximately thirty candidates are invited to Stanford for an interview. Resident interview dates are Dec 8th, 9th,15th, & 16th, 2011.

The Department of Ophthalmology sponsors several ophthalmology clerkships including a four to six week hands-on clinical externship at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center and a similar two week externship at the Livermore VA hospital. To find more complete descriptions, period dates, and the on-line application go to med.stanford.edu/osa.