What surprised me so much about my first year here
was how much I was happy here
as a resident doing ophthalmology.
I was pretty blown away with just how supportive
and nurturing an environment that it seemed to be.
Stony Brook Ophthalmology is preparing me to become an excellent ophthalmologist when I graduate from training here.
I think what makes a great ophthalmologist is someone who really wants to improve the quality of life for their patients
and I think Stony Brook has all of the necessary tools that we can teach our residents to really become skilled ophthalmologists and make a difference in the lives of their patients.
Total of nine residents. We have diverse patient population that makes our program unique.
More importantly, we have faculty who truly care about resident education.
This results in producing some of the best clinicians and ophthalmologists for our future generation.
Stony Brook has been on a positive trajectory for some time now and this allows residents to have a better clinical experience because
they can now cover the hospital floors for consults, the outpatient clinics, and the ORs.
There's a diverse group of patients including a lot of Hispanic-speaking patients, a lot fo patients who are underserved, or some of them are even undocumented.
What surprised me the most is being here in the clinic each day and really seeing a broad variety of different ophthalmic conditions.
One of the strengths of our program is that relation with Northport VA medical center. Residents spend half of their training over there.
They get great surgical experience there.
Both of our clinics offer state-of-the-art technology with the latest equipment for teaching.
And these areas offer residents the opportunity to train using the latest imaging diagnostics and latest therapeutic interventions and lasers
so that they really come out with a comprehensive exposure to the field and feel comfortable after their training treating patients.
Our residents have the opportunity to participate in research. They present at local, regional and national meetings.
They also have an opportunity to go on a mission trip.
We have a mission program that was put together by one of our adjunct faculty, Dr. Messina, who has this Promise to Peru Program, and residents
can take part in this mission, and they perform cataract surgery or other interventions for ophthalmology on patients that otherwise wouldn't have access to care.
Our didactic program is very well defined.And each week there's a morning report on Wednesdays where residents will typically present either interesting cases or their QA projects or their research-based projects.
And it's a great opportunity for them to prepare and begin presenting some of their work in a more formal manner.
We also have rounds that occur once/month that we invite a faculty member from other institutions to talk about the
latest research and interesting topics. It's very informative, not just for our residents but also for our attendings, and it's a good way for everybody to keep up to date in areas that are not necessarily in their own specialties.
We have highly-skilled full-time faculty in all specialties. They are very approachable, easy to talk to, easy to contact.
The important thing is we have double coverage in all of the major areas in ophthalmology, so there's never a lack of supervision available for our residents.
The fact that I can call them any time of the day or night and they're available to help me is probably one of the best things about the program.
I get to develop a personal relationship with all my attendings, and it just has this close-knit structure, and that's what I enjoy so much about it.
There's a lot of camaraderie between the residents within their individual year and across the program as a whole.
As an ophthalmology resident, I do have time to take care of myself, I do have time to go out and meet friends and meet other people, and I think living
in Long Island, you get the best of both worlds because you're an hour away from New York City and at the same time you have these beautiful beaches, you have hikes, you have wineries, amazing restaurants, and it's just a great place to be.
Stony Brook we are very proud of our graduates. Approximately 80 percent of our graduates have gone to fellowship programs, they have matched at top-notch fellowships
in cornea, glaucoma, retina...across the country. I feel very comfortable saying that we have a fantastic group of attendings
and we provide residents with a fantastic opportunity. I just hope that all of the applicants watching this can get some sense of the exciting environment that's offered here.