Ophthalmology Residency Program
San Antonio Skyline
Residency Program
The University of Texas Health Science Center offers a three-year ophthalmology residency. We seek highly motivated individuals with excellent academic qualifications. Residents are challenged in the clinical and surgical settings, and they are strongly encouraged to take advantage of the many research opportunities within our department. Our graduates are well prepared to enter a busy comprehensive practice or successfully pursue fellowship training in the area of their choice. Approximately one-half of our graduates have entered fellowships after residency and the other half have gone into private practices. Our program is located in San Antonio, a vibrant city with rich cultural diversity, excellent schools and affordable housing. Our historic city has a population of over one million and ranks among the ten largest cities in the United States; yet, its warm and friendly citizens give it a small town feel.
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| Bluebonnet Field | The Alamo - Shrine of Texas Liberty |
The Riverwalk |
Four residency positions are available at the PGY-2 level. Our program participates in the Ophthalmology Matching Program sponsored by the Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology and administered by the San Francisco Matching program (www.sfmatch.org).
The Department of Ophthalmology provides each new resident the twelve-volume set of the American Academy of Ophthalmology's Basic and Clinical Science Course, as well other essential manuals. During the month of February, the first year residents are sent to the Houston Basic Science Course; this four-week course is an intensive review of ophthalmology. Our department pays for the tuition, but the residents must cover their travel and living expenses. Beginning residents are also required to purchase their own lenses for slit lamp stereomicroscopy of the fundus and indirect ophthalmoscopy.
Second year residents are required to submit an abstract of their original research for presentation to the annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology. All second year residents are sent to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for this five-day meeting in the spring. All third year residents are sent to the annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology for this four-day event. The department would fund the travel of any resident to either of these major meetings if that resident has an abstract accepted for presentation.
Primary on-call duties are performed by first and second year residents; on-call is from home, and it occurs about five times per month. Third year residents perform "back-up" call, which occurs every four weeks. Trauma volume is high, and residents become very experienced at managing lacerated globes, orbital fractures, eyelid lacerations, and other injuries.
Academic activities include daily morning teleconferencing covering material from the Basic and Clinical Science Course. These are conducted in association with the ophthalmology departments at Wilford Hall Air Force Medical Center and the Brook Army Medical Center. The military ophthalmology faculty and residents also join us, along with community ophthalmologists, in weekly Grand Rounds on Friday mornings, in which interesting or challenging cases are presented for examination and formal discussions. Didactic sessions with local faculty or guest lecturers follow the Grand Rounds events. Monthly Journal Club meetings provide an opportunity for discussion of the latest literature in informal and social settings, often hosted in the homes of our community faculty.
A Resident's Surgical Skills lab is available for learning and practicing surgical techniques. This lab is equipped with an operating microscope, phacoemulsification machine, posterior-segment surgical gear, and a variety of instruments.
Applicants for our residency program must clear a screening process to ensure that they are not listed by a federal agency as excluded, suspended or otherwise ineligible for participation in federal programs. UTHSCSA performs the screening at no cost to the applicant. We comply with all Equal Employment Opportunity and American with Disabilities Act requirements.
Our graduates must be eligible to sit for the examinations of the American Board of Ophthalmology (ABO), for which they apply immediately upon graduation. ABO examination candidates must have a valid medical license in the United States, its territories or a Canadian province. Therefore, it is required that residents entering our program have successfully passed all parts of the USMLE necessary for state licensure. We expect our residents to concentrate on mastering ophthalmology, without the distraction of preparing for other examinations during their ophthalmology residency.
PGY-2
The first year provides the resident with the clinical foundations of ophthalmology. Rotations in comprehensive ophthalmology, emergency and inpatient consultations, ocular pathology, and neuro-ophthalmology provide the resident with the knowledge and skills to examine patients, identify abnormalities and begin to formulate differential diagnoses and management plans. In addition, basic surgical principles and skills are learned on the oculoplastics rotation as the resident participates in surgical procedures involving the orbit and ocular adnexae.
PGY-3
Second year rotations are in glaucoma, pediatric ophthalmology and strabismus, and comprehensive ophthalmology as well as in emergency and inpatient consults. During the second year, surgery is performed on the globe and in the eye. Residents perform muscle surgery, trabeculectomies and glaucoma tube shunt placements, and extracapsular cataract extractions and do their first phacoemulsification cases. Residents also perform various anterior segment and retina laser procedures.
PGY-4
The third year residents hone their skills in anterior segment surgery, particularly phacoemulsification of cataracts and lens implants. Two comprehensive rotations are joined by the cornea/uveitis rotation and the retina rotation.
Facilities
The two major residents' clinics are the University Physicians Group (UPG) Ophthalmology Clinic at the University Center for Community Health (UCCH) and the Ophthalmology Clinic of the Audie Murphy Veterans Administration (VA) Hospital. Combined clinical activity is well over 20,000 annual patient visits. Our resident consult service receives referrals from the VA Hospital's and the University Hospital's inpatients and emergency department; over 1000 initial consults are seen annually. Surgical experience is also superb, with residents easily exceeding required minimum procedure numbers. During subspecialty rotations, the residents may spend some time at the faculty's clinic, University of Texas Eye consultants (UTEC), located within the University Hospital. Some rotations include time with community faculty; on these rotations, the resident will be at the faculty member's private office and may go to one of our other affiliated hospitals for surgery with that faculty member. Most offices and hospitals are within the Medical Center area in central San Antonio.
Pathology and basic science research laboratories, as well as the administrative offices for the Ophthalmology Department are in the McDermott Building, and our Lions Low Vision Center is in the Allied Health Building, both located in the Medical Center's north campus, about 2 blocks northwest of the medical school and University Hospital.
Additional Benefits
- Malpractice Liability Insurance
- Medical Insurance
- Dental Insurance
- Clinical Jackets (3)
- On site parking permits
- On-call meals
- Library Copy Privileges
For additional information, please contact:
Office of Education
Department of Ophthalmology, MC-6230
The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
7703 Floyd Curl Drive
San Antonio, TX 78229-3900
(210) 567-8406
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© 1996-2005 UTHSCSA Department of Ophthalmology
Updated 26 Jan 2006