Program Overview

International Cornea Fellowship -- Program 4274

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 provided additional 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 Details

• Application due date: August 31
• Interview date: Friday, October 10
• Stipend: PGY5, no less than $84,095

Leadership

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.

The faculty includes:

• Jeremy Bartley, M.D.
• R. Wayne Bowman, M.D., Fellowship Director
• S. Serdar Dogan, M.D.
• Ziad Husseini, M.D.
• Nhon Le, M.D.
• V. Vinod Mootha, M.D.
• Deniz Oral, M.D.
• Danielle M. Robertson, O.D., Ph.D.
• George C. Thorne, M.D.
• Steven M. Verity, M.D.
• William H. Waldrop, M.D., Fellowship Co-Director
• Margaret Wang French, M.D.

Srikiran Institute of Ophthalmology (India)

Senior residents and fellows are welcome to spend a minimum of two weeks at the Srikiran Institute of Ophthalmology, 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.