OVERVIEW

The training experience at the Doheny Eye Institute/LAC+USC Medical Center consists of three years of clinical exposure primarily in these two facilities, as well as rotations through the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, the Doheny Vision Research Center, and the LA Veterans Administration Hospital (both the downtown LA and the West LA facilities). All areas of adult ophthalmology are provided at the Doheny Eye Institute, a modern clinic with state-of-the-art technology and equipment. All areas of adult and pediatric ophthalmology are provided at the LA County Hospital, with modern technology brought to bear on a wide variety of challenging eye conditions.

The ophthalmology service at the LA County Hospital consists of a 20 room clinic, a 3-lane outpatient emergency eye clinic, an inpatient ward, and two fully equipped, modern eye operating suites. There are approximately 150 admissions to the LAC-USC inpatient ward, 1,500 surgical cases, and 36,000 outpatient visits managed by the resident staff. The subspecialty clinics represented at the LA County+USC Hospital include External Disease Clinics, Glaucoma Clinics, Pediatric/Strabismus Clinics, Oculoplastic and Orbital Surgery Clinics, and Retina Clinics. These specialty clinics are staffed by faculty within that subspecialty.

The Doheny/USC ophthalmology residency program consists of a three-year post-graduate training program in ophthalmology, with six residents each year. Individuals selected for residency training must complete one year of post-graduate training of either a categorical or flexible type of internship. This PGY-1 year must be approved by the ACGME or the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. The ophthalmology training program is supervised by the full-time and voluntary attending staff of Department of Ophthalmology.

The program provides for maximum clinical responsibility in both the outpatient and inpatient settings. The typical day begins with morning work rounds focused on patients seen by the on-call resident and management of inpatients, and this is followed by morning lecture. The outpatient clinic typically is open from 9-5 daily, and is staffed by the resident supervisor, full-time attending staff, clinical instructors and voluntary attending staff. The surgery program consists of both elective and emergency major surgery in which the resident performs increasingly difficult procedures according to his or her stage of development.