Ophthalmology

Other/International Training Opportunities

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International Cornea Fellowship — Program 4274

Cornea Fellowship Director R. Wayne Bowman, M.D., and Associate Program Director William Waldrop, M.D., detail the advantages of the program at UT Southwestern.

Department of Ophthalmology Virtual Tour

The International Cornea Fellowship is a two-year clinical and research training program. The Fellowship Program gives fellows the opportunity to engage in intensive, hands-on clinical training in all major areas of corneal, keratorefractive and anterior segment surgery and diseases, and directed research. These areas include:

  • Cornea surgery
  • External disease
  • Small-incision, clear-corneal phacoemulsification cataract surgery with presbyopic, toric, and phakic IOLs
  • Refractive surgery
  • Eye banking
  • Contact lens
  • Diagnostic confocal microscopy and other advance imaging

The cornea faculty preceptors have active subspecialty practices covering all these areas, and extensive track records in training international fellows. Fellows have hands-on involvement in all cases, and are given the opportunity to perform many surgical procedures (as primary surgeon by the second year), including phaco, PKP, DSAEK, PRK, LASIK and WaveFront-guided custom ablations.

There is structured interaction with residents in a very busy, high-volume training program that uses Parkland Hospital, the Dallas Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Children’s Health Children’s Medical Center, and John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth.

The fellow will be involved in supervised clinically related research projects with specific focus and short duration. Each of the preceptors has ongoing projects and fellows are free to choose their involvement in research that includes both surgical and medical treatment studies. In-depth involvement in one or more trials is encouraged. In addition, there are several basic scientists in the Department of Ophthalmology with established research interests in the cornea or anterior segment of the eye. Each has a fully equipped laboratory with ongoing, funded projects available to participating fellows.

Second-year fellows may continue research projects begun in the first year and are additionally provided opportunities to participate in more substantive projects. Research in the second year is also performed under the supervision of a preceptor. The training provided the fellows is intended to enable them to act as principal investigators by the end of the International Corneal Fellowship Program.

Prerequisites

Highly motivated candidates must have oral and written command of the English language. Applicants must be permanent residents, or eligible to obtain an ECFMG-sponsored J1 training visa. All candidates training on a visa must have plans to return to their home country at the conclusion of their fellowship training. Candidates must be eligible to obtain a Physician in Training (PIT) permit from the Texas Medical Board prior to beginning the fellowship.

Application due date: To be announced.

2024 Interview date: To be announced.

Stipend: PGY5, no less than $80,521

Application

International Cornea Fellowship Program applicants must register and submit an application through the SFMatch. Interviews are required and granted by invitation only. 

Apply via SFMatch

Faculty

The corneal faculty preceptors have active subspecialty practices covering all these areas. Participants have hands-on involvement in all cases, and are given the opportunity to perform many surgical procedures as primary surgeon, including phaco, PK, DSEK, PRK, LASIK, and wavefront-guided custom ablations. There is structured interaction with residents in a very busy, high-volume program that uses Parkland Hospital, the Dallas Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Children’s Health℠ Children’s Medical Center, and John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth.

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Joint Subspecialty Ophthalmic Fellowship (Cornea and Vitreoretinal) at the St. John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group

The Department of Ophthalmology sends postdoctoral fellows and faculty to work at the St. John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital in Israel, which provides eye care to as many as 66,000 people in need each year.

The humanitarian and cultural backdrop provided by the Hospital is immense: St. John is a Christian organization with a hospital in a Jewish country, benefiting Arab Palestinians, who are mostly Muslim. The Jerusalem hospital is home to an outpatient clinic and ophthalmology training program. With 25,000 worldwide members, the U.K.-based international charity of St. John is recognized by the U.N., and St. John volunteers carry out philanthropic activities in more than 40 countries.

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Srikiran Institute of Ophthalmology (India)

Senior residents and fellows are welcome to spend a minimum of two weeks at the Srikiran Institute, a tertiary eye care center located in rural Andhra Pradesh, India. The Institute exposes visiting physicians to pathology unique to the developing world, and offers them the opportunity to participate in outreach camps in nearby villages to screen hundreds of patients to identify individuals who may benefit from surgery or treatment at the base hospital.

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