Residency Program Ophthalmology
Residents who match at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center will be in an integrated year as a medicine preliminary year at Flushing Hospital Medical Center. Interns will spend three months on the ophthalmology service at JHMC. Residents participate in comprehensive didactic education, accomplished via weekly lectures, as well as frequent conferences covering the BCSC. Residents are also encouraged to participate in ongoing research projects as well as to attend and present at national meetings and conferences.
Consistently serving the community since 1891, Jamaica Hospital Medical Center is widely regarded as a leading hospital in Queens, NY, and named one of America’s 250 Best Hospitals. It is a designated Level I Trauma Center and one of the busiest hospitals in New York City. At JHMC, our goal is to train ophthalmologists with outstanding diagnostic and surgical skills and prepare our residents for subspecialty fellowship, or a career in comprehensive ophthalmology. Our call schedule is Q4 home call for PGY2s and PGY3s and Q2 backup call as PGY4s. Our clinic is equipped with an Optos machine, Heidelberg Spectralis OCT, Pentacam, IOLMaster, fundus photography, slit lamp photography, and fluorescein angiography. Residents work closely together with ophthalmic techs who perform all triaging, imaging, and testing, and with an orthoptist who is invaluable in strabismus evaluations. Our facility includes a laser room for glaucoma, YAGs, and retinal lasers. A separate procedure room allows oculoplastics procedures to be performed in the clinic.
PGY-1: Incoming interns will spend nine months at Flushing Hospital Medical Center as internal medicine prelim. Rotations include general floor, telemetry, Cardiac Care Unit, and Intensive Care Unit. They will also spend three blocks of 3 to 4-week rotations at Jamaica Hospital’s eye clinic and learn slit lamp examination, observe procedures and learn to assess and manage common eye conditions.
PGY-2: Residents join the busy clinic which generally runs from Monday to Friday from 8 am to 5 pm. They start taking buddy calls with the backup PGY4s in the first 4 weeks before transitioning to calls with close supervision. They learn to perform lasers including PIs, YAGs, and SLTs, as well as procedures including intravitreal injections and eyelid laceration repairs. Residents work in comprehensive, cornea, glaucoma, pediatric, neuro-ophthalmology, and retina clinics on a weekly basis.
PGY-3: Residents continue to work in all comprehensive and sub-specialty clinics, and they begin rotating through oculoplastics. They begin surgical training including strabismus, pterygium excision, and oculoplastics surgeries. Once a month a resident attends the Low Vision Clinic at the Helen Keller Institute with our experienced low-vision specialist, Dr. Marc Epstein. Once a month a resident also rotates with Dr. Paul Finger, a leader in Ocular Oncology. Residents also rotate with Dr. Mackool at the Mackool Eye Institute every week and gain exposure to a wide range of anterior segment surgeries. Residents perform cross-linking and gain exposure to refractive surgeries including LASIK and PRK. Every month residents also rotate through New York Eye and Ear Infirmary for vitreoretinal surgeries. Residents also attend the Annual Harvard Intensive Cataract Surgical Training Course in the spring.
PGY-4: Residents continue to build on their surgical numbers and begin performing cataract and glaucoma surgeries. PGY4s start the year with buddy calls and take backup call with the incoming PGY-2s. In the fall they attend the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, and registration, travel, hotel, food, and course attendance is reimbursed by the program. Residents also attend the Wills Eye Institute Annual Ophthalmology Review Course in preparation for their OKAPs and Boards.
