Residency Program
Introduction
The Ophthalmology Residency Training Program at Wake Forest University/ Baptist Medical Center is a three-year program with three house officers at each level. Residents enter at the PGY-2 level, having completed an approved PGY-1 year of clinical training. With a total of only nine residents at a time, the WFU residency is among the smaller programs. However, it remains highly competitive for the best resident applicants for a number of reasons: the high full-time faculty to resident ratio, the location of faculty and residents together in a state-of-the-art facility, busy medical and surgical resident experience, and the commitment of the faculty to resident education. About half of our graduates have gone on to pursue fellowship training at the most prestigious institutions in the nation.
Facilities
Residency training is based at the Wake Forest University/Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Residents gain additional surgical and medical experience at the Veteran’s Administration Hospital in Salisbury, North Carolina (about a 50 min drive), and the Veteran's Administration outpatient clinic in Winston-Salem, located only a few minutes away from the Eye Center.
The Wake Forest University Eye Center is a 28,000 square foot modern facility in which the outpatient activities of the department of Ophthalmology are conducted. The eye center includes examination lanes used by both residents and faculty, and facilities for diagnostic procedures such as fluorescein angiography, computerized visual fields, A-scan and B-scan ultrasonography, electrophysiological studies, and state-of-the art photographic equipment. Minor procedure rooms and therapeutic lasers (including an Allegretto Wavelight laser for LASIK) are also located on site. The Eye Center also includes the North Carolina Clinical Research Division, comprising about 1,000 square feet of dedicated clinical trial research space.
An academic area in the Eye center houses the faculty offices, and the main conference room. The conference room contains a continually updated Ophthalmology library, a convenient outpost of the exhaustive resources of the Carpenter Medical Library also located on campus. Other on-site library resources include a computer for internet, literature searches, and educational CD-ROM for resident and faculty use, and closed circuit television from the hospital operating suites. The conference room is also equipped for video, slide, and computer-based presentations, and is the focal point of resident didactic instruction.
The central location of the WFU Eye Center within the medical center complex permits convenient and efficient movement between the Eye Center, the inpatient and outpatient surgical suites, and the hospital. The Eye Center is thus strategically located to interact with all of the other clinical departments and divisions of the greater Medical Center.
Faculty
All major subspecialty areas of ophthalmology are represented by full-time, on-site faculty: retina and vitreous; cornea/external disease including refractive surgery; glaucoma; ophthalmic plastic surgery; pediatric ophthalmology, neuro-ophthalmology, and comprehensive/cataract specialists. Ocular pathology instruction is provided by a pathologist with co-appointments in ophthalmology and neuro-pathology. The faculty members in the department of ophthalmology are distinguished experts in their fields, authoring many publications yearly. Faculty members are frequently involved in national clinical trials, and the North Carolina Lions Clinical Research Division has one full-time and one half-time clinical research nurses. This dedicated clinical research entity may be utilized by residents who wish to participate in major clinical trials at the level of both performance and acquaintance with the methodologies of modern clinical research.
Resident training
Wake Forest University Eye Center sees approximately 43,000 patient visits per year, providing an ideal substrate for resident clinical experience. The residency clinical training is divided between managing patients with subspecialty ophthalmic problems, and patients with general ophthalmology concerns. During the morning hours, the residents have scheduled rotations on each of the ophthalmology subspecialty services, where they work closely with the subspecialty faculty, managing both common and uncommon ophthalmic disorders that have been referred from the community to the Eye Center. Each afternoon, residents see patients with a variety of medical and surgical ophthalmic disorders in the Comprehensive Eye Service (CES). This general outpatient service allows residents to manage patients much like a community ophthalmology practice, following their patients longitudinally for the duration of the 36 months training period. The CES provides an ideal format for clinical teaching, and is supported by dedicated supervising faculty, staffing, and eye center facilities. At each level, residents rotate to the VA facilities for further enhancement of medical and surgical skills, with dedicated onsite comprehensive ophthalmologists, and rotating sub-specialists.
More than 2,100 major ocular surgeries are performed by faculty and residents each year. These procedures include a full array of both outpatient and inpatient procedures performed in the operating rooms of North Carolina Baptist Hospital. Almost 800 additional procedures are performed yearly in the minor operating suites of the Eye Center itself. With this volume of surgical experience, the residents typically far exceed the recommended number of procedures for proficiency in ophthalmology. This is especially true of cataract surgery, as the heavy volume of resident cataract cases at the Eye Center is further complimented by the VA surgical program.
Residents learn the ocular manifestations of systemic disease first-hand as they participate in the busy inpatient consultation service, working with faculty in the evaluation of patients from the various medical and surgical services at Medical Center. Trauma experience is also exceptional, as Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center is a designated level I trauma center, the Eye Center is a member of the National Eye Trauma System (NETS).
More than 170 hours of didactic lectures are provided each year by the full-time faculty. Most lectures occur during protected time in the early morning hours, using the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s Basic Science Course as a guide. The department also sends each resident to a one week basic ophthalmic review course of national prominence at an outside institution. Other formal teaching venues include four annual "grand rounds" which are conducted by nationally prominent teaching ophthalmologists. The Annual Wake Forest University Eye Conference attracts a regional audience of Eye MDs, as invited experts address issues of interest to area ophthalmologists. The residents present the results of their research endeavors at this annual conference.
Each resident is strongly encouraged to pursue a clinical research project of his/her choice and under the supervision of a faculty person and to publish at least one paper in a peer-reviewed academic journal before the training program can considered to have been successfully completed. Residents are given specific instruction in presenting case reports and scientific papers, and benefit from superior audiovisual services for academic and scholarly pursuits. Each resident is sent to at least one Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, but the department also fully sponsors residents who have papers accepted at national meetings.
Applying for a residency
Qualified applicants should apply through the Central Application Service provided by the Ophthalmology Match Program, www.sfmatch.org/. Our deadline for applications is Oct 1st of each year.
Additional Information:
Chairman: Craig M. Greven, MD
Residency Program Director: Timothy J. Martin, MD
Assistant to Both: Mary Kirk Huske khuske@wfubmc.edu
Residents