New York University
New York University is an integral part of the metropolitan community of New York City--the business, cultural, artistic and financial center of the nation and home of the United Nations. The city's extraordinary resources enrich both the academic programs and the experience of living at New York University--just as the resources of the University contribute, in hundreds of ways, to the life and work of the city. This two-way relationship has important implications for education at New York University.
New York University is a private, metropolitan university that offers the advantages of a great urban setting with a highly diverse student body. Founded in 1831, the University includes 14 schools, colleges and divisions at five major centers in Manhattan. New York University is committed to a policy of equal treatment and opportunity in every aspect of its relations with its faculty, students and staff members without regard to sex, sexual orientation, marital or pre-marital status, race, color, religion, national origin, age, or handicap.
New York University Medical Center
New York University established the Medical Center in 1947 to initiate an expanded program of medical education, patient care and research. The Medical Center includes the School of Medicine, the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine, the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, the Post-Graduate Medical School and Tisch Hospital, a private hospital physically connected to the School of Medicine.
Tisch Hospital (formerly the University Hospital of New York University), which opened in 1963, has 726 beds for the care of private patients. The major portion of resident training however, is done at the two major adjacent institutions, Bellevue Hospital Center and the Manhattan Veterans Administration Hospital.
In 1975, a modern 25-story hospital (The new Bellevue) was opened and this hospital can well be regarded as the crown jewel of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation which administers a total of 17 hospitals in the five boroughs of New York City. Bellevue Hospital accommodates a total of 1,232 patient beds in one-bed, two-bed, and four-bed rooms all on the periphery of the building with dramatic views of the New York City skyline. The School of Medicine supervises all care and treatment for about 26,000 inpatients, more than 370,000 outpatients, and approximately 100,000 emergency room visits a year.
The second major hospital integrated into the Medical Center for patient care and teaching is the New York Veterans Administration Hospital, a 645 bed facility adjacent to the Bellevue Hospital Center on First Avenue and 24th Street. It serves 14,000 inpatient admissions and 300,000 outpatient visits annually. This physical plant is also quite modern and equipped with the latest and most sophisticated medical instrumentation. As Bellevue Hospital is a core institution within the municipal hospital system, the Manhattan Veterans Hospital is a regional core institution within the eastern district of the federally-run Veterans Administration.
Department Of Ophthalmology
The Ophthalmology Department of the New York University Medical Center, under the chairmanship of Dr. Goodwin M. Breinin, is the provider of eye services for, the Tisch, Bellevue, and Manhattan Veteran's Hospitals, as well as academic instruction in the New York University School of Medicine and Postgraduate Medical School. There are 14 hospital beds available within these three hospitals, the annual out-patient clinic visits number approximately 30,000 with an additional 3,000 emergency visits and a total of 1,600 major ophthalmic operations are performed yearly.
The director of the ophthalmic service at Tisch and Bellevue hospitals is Dr. Breinin. Bellevue Hospital has an active outpatient clinic run by Dr. David Howard. The attending and resident staff see more than 18,000 outpatient visits annually. In addition to a general clinic, there are specialty clinics in the fields of external disease, cornea, contact lenses, uveitis, glaucoma, strabismus and pediatric ophthalmology, medical and surgical retina, plastic surgery, neuro-ophthalmology, low vision, minor surgery, and post-operative surgical care. There are also laboratories for ocular microbiology and ocular pathology. Nearly 500 major ocular procedures are performed each year, and the active referral services within the hospital accounts for almost 3,000 annual inpatient ophthalmological consultations.
Tisch Hospital functions as a teaching hospital in the care of the surgical patient. In addition to an inpatient unit, the adjacent Cooperative Care facility has a Day Surgery unit for the ambulatory surgical cases. This concept of out-patient surgical care was one the first in the country.
The Eye Section at the Manhattan Veteran's Hospital is directed by Dr. Joel M. Solomon and is fully integrated within the NYU service. Approximately 13,000 outpatient visits and in- patient consultations are examined and treated annually, and almost 600 surgical procedures are performed on veterans. The eye department is the referral institution for complex cases from the many other Veteran Hospitals in the eastern district, including those as far away as Boston and Philadelphia.
First Year Residents
The first two months are spent receiving an intensive course in basic ophthalmological diagnosis and examination. After this orientation, the resident begins, in September, a four-month didactic course, the Basic Science Course in Ophthalmology, which is a part of the New York University Post-Graduate Medical School. During the course, residents assist in the general eye clinics in order to apply their lecture material to patient care.
Following the Basic Science Course, the resident assumes a more integral part of direct patient care. This includes outpatient clinic visits, in-patient hospital consultation and minor surgical procedures, and laser surgery.
Second Year Residents
The major portion of this year is spent in the outpatient department of Bellevue and the Veteran's Hospital. In addition to the general eye clinics at these hospitals, the residents are in charge of the various specialty clinics which meet usually on a weekly basis. These include the subspecialty area of cornea and external disease, ocular plastic surgery, contact lenses, pediatrics and strabismus, neuro-ophthalmology, low vision, glaucoma, uveitis, and retina.
The second year residents direct the entire Bellevue Hospital, ophthalmological consultation service, which provides a unique opportunity to examine various eye conditions not normally seen in a routine office practice. In a similar fashion, the Bellevue Hospital Emergency Ward provides referral cases of a most varied nature.
Third Year Residents
The third year residents serve as the Chief residents in rotation at the three hospitals. The major portion of the year is spent in care of the surgical patient. The nature of the surgical procedures from each institution provides a varied and complete picture of all aspects of surgical ophthalmology. All surgical procedures are performed under the tutelage of an attending surgeon with the most modern equipment available. Emphasis is placed on appropriate pre- and post-operative evaluation in order to develop good surgical judgment.
Lenox Hill Hospital Affiliation
On July 1998, the residency training program in Ophthalmology at Lenox Hill Hospital will be fully integrated with the NYU program. A total of five residents per year will service the combined program.
The basic science course in ophthalmology, directed by the Ophthalmology Department as part of the post-graduate Medical School, is one of the oldest continuing courses given in the United States. The current course directors, Goodwin M. Breinin and Norman C. Charles, continue to provide an intensive four-month course for first year residents in ophthalmology. The syllabus includes optics and refraction, anatomy including gross dissection, pathology, extra-ocular motility, neuroophthalmology perimetry, physiology, microbiology, embryology, and ophthalmoscopy with lectures in radio-diagnoses, ultrasound, therapeutics, uveitis, glaucoma, surgery, corneal diseases, genetics, and the application of contact lenses.
Grand Rounds
Grand Rounds for the entire resident and attending staff are held weekly during the academic year in the departmental library. Under the direction of the chief of the department, the administrative chief resident organizes these meetings to include examination and discussion of interesting patients as well as didactic lectures by the attending staff on topics of current interest. Invited guest lecturers provide stimulating insights in their specific areas of expertise.
Didactic Lecture Series
A series of resident lectures includes selected topics in corneal and external diseases, uveitis, glaucoma, retina and vitreous, neuro-ophthalmology, pathology, motility, and surgery. These weekly conferences are given by an attending or invited guests who have an interest in the specific topic chosen.
Journal Club
This is a monthly meeting devoted to a specific topic with an attending as moderator and a resident lecturer. Appropriate journal articles are distributed to the residents in advance. The major emphasis is on learning how to read the scientific literature in a critical fashion, i.e., how can one discern a good article from a bad article. The resident chooses the topic and decides on the attending moderator.
Home Study Course
Three times a month, the residents meet to review material contained in a series of booklets sponsored by the American Academy of Ophthalmology. A specific resident is responsible for each weekly meeting.
Ocular Microsurgery Course
The second year residents have a formalized two-day practical course, with an accompanying manual, on ocular microsurgical techniques. Each resident has an operating room microscope, cadaver eyes on a mounted stand and microsurgical instruments and suture material. The student-teacher ratio is one to one.
Extramural Activities
Residents are encouraged and assisted in attending scientific sessions held in the greater New York area. These include, but are not limited to, the scientific meetings of the New York Academy of Medicine (Section on Ophthalmology), the New York Society for Clinical Ophthalmology and lectures at other residency programs in the greater New York area.
Second year residents are required to attend a day-long symposium on Low Vision sponsored by the National Association for Visually Handicapped held in New York City.
All residents attend the weekly evening Greater New York Ophthalmology Clinical Lecture Series, which is an interdepartmental effort. Residents are encouraged and supported to attend and to present at a number of annual national meetings, such as the American Academy of Ophthalmology, Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, Contact Lens Association of Ophthalmologists, and the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery.
Other Activities
The residents have the primary responsibility regarding the preparation and representation of material in the (1) resident grand rounds presentations (2) journal club and (3) home study course.
The residents are intimately involved in medical student teaching. This involves didactic instruction when the medical students attend the various departmental conferences and practical instruction in the normal history and physical examination of patients seen together in the various clinics. Medical students are invited to observe ocular surgery in the inpatient and outpatient facilities. They are evaluated by the resident staff. The residents give lectures to the emergency room staff, nursing personnel and non-ophthalmological physicians.
Another unique characteristic of the teaching program results from the large number of Ophthalmology training programs in the Greater New York City area and the extraordinary cooperation and sharing of resources among these institutions.
The Greater New York Ophthalmology Clinical Lecture Series, now in its eighth consecutive year, provides an outstanding extramural experience for all residents. The finest experts in the country contribute to the 3 hour weekly series which runs from September to June.
Two other New York City ophthalmology societies, the New York Academy of Medicine - Section on Ophthalmology and the New York Society for Clinical Ophthalmology, provide lecture series and symposia carefully designed in part for residency education.
Finally, there is a generosity of spirit among the Ophthalmology training institutions in New York City that allows residents to attend conferences at other programs for a nominal cost.
The residency program at the New York University Medical Center takes full advantage of all these opportunities.
Strengths Of Program
The major strength of our program is that the resident assumes, over the period of three years in training, a larger and larger role in the primary care of patients with diverse ophthalmological diseases. The surgical volume is large and varied, and attendings are present at all surgical procedures to assist and instruct. All subspecialty areas have expert supervision. Conferences are both didactic and case oriented.
In the past few years, the department has been able to successfully recruit a number of highly qualified and able young attendings, many with subspecialization expertise. These include the areas of vitreo-retinal surgery, plastic surgery, cornea, pediatric ophthalmology, strabismus, oncology and glaucoma. These attendings have participated in resident supervision in general clinic, in subspecialty clinics, and in the operating room. The exposure of the residents to these new additions have enriched their education.
Research
Research is a very important activity in the Department of Ophthalmology. Investigation in the basic and clinical aspects of ophthalmology and visual science are ongoing and include a wide variety of topics.
The Daniel B. Kirby Institute of Ophthalmology is the research division of the department and includes many basic and clinical science investigators.
Residents are encouraged to participate in a research project already underway. However, some residents have successfully developed their own particular area of interest.
Research resident activities have resulted in presentations at prestigious national meetings and publications in peer review journals.
Application Process
The Department had selected four residents each year through the Ophthalmology Matching Program. The combined program will now select a total of five residents this year. Residents are matched approximately 18 months prior to the starting date.
All applications are processed through the Central Application Service, P.O. Box 7584, San Francisco, CA 94120 (415-447-0350). Please do not send any materials directly to the Department of Ophthalmology.
Interview
Completed applications are reviewed in November and interviews are scheduled for December. After the committee reviews all of the completed applications, invitations are sent to selected candidates to visit the Medical Center for an interview with the Resident Selection Committee. Interviews are completed only during the three dates set aside for that purpose so the entire Committee can meet with the candidates.
Foreign Medical Graduates
Foreign medical graduates must obtain ECFMG certification. Application forms may be obtained from the ECFMG's Applicants Information Services (215) 386-5900
Residents' Benefits
New York University Medical Center provides comprehensive health insurance for you, your spouse and unmarried children under 19 years of age. Unmarried dependent children in full-time attendance at an accredited secondary school, college or university, may be included up to age 25. Unmarried dependent children 19 years of age or older who are incapable of self support due to physical or mental handicap which occurred prior to age 19 are also covered. Same gender, domestic partners may also be covered.
A choice of Oxford/POP/US Health Care or HIP is available. Contributions are required for all coverages.
An institutional insurance policy extends professional liability insurance to each resident, and residents are provided with term life insurance from the institution at no cost. Additional benefits include drug prescriptions, a dental plan and long-term disability. Details of the health plan coverage may be found in the plan booklet.
Fellowships
Fellowships are offered in retina, oculoplastics and neuro-ophthalmology. Those in fellowship training are not competing with the residents, but rather help with resident instruction. New York University Medical Center is a resident training institution. Its goal is to graduate qualified, well rounded and ethical clinical ophthalmologists.
Any further questions should be directed to the departmental office at (212)263-6434.