Welcome to the Cleveland VA Medical
Center
I'm Rachel Canania
My mission for your residency here is to
help you learn exceptional patient care,
through increased exposure to ocular
disease.
We are seeking motivated residents who
love learning.
This is a large team environment, where
we thrive on the daily challenge of
complex cases. We have worked hard to
build a diverse experience for the
residents that changes quarterly and
includes;
seeing emergencies,
specialty contact lens fits,
low vision exposure,
and rotating to a separate outpatient
clinic which includes some
post-operative care.
We have a unique setup here where
optometry supports a robust retina
clinic.
You will work side by side with Dr.
Eliff a vitriol retinal surgeon to
manage referrals.
To reinforce what you learn through
cases in clinic, there is a weekly
didactic conference, where we dissect and
apply evidence-based medicine.
Later in your training you will also
have the opportunity to share your
knowledge through precepting student
externs.
We have an amazing team of dedicated
doctors and a top-notch facility here. So
now I'd love to show you around and have
you meet some of our team.
Hi I'm Piana Simpson, and I'm one of the
staff optometrists and attendings at the
VA Medical Center.
Here at the Cleveland VA, optometrists
are the gatekeepers for all eye care.
This provides the residents with the
unique opportunity of triaging all
ocular emergencies.
You'll be managing cases ranging from
red eyes to nerve palsies to orbital
fractures just to name a few.
Working in a large, hospital-based clinic,
also allows our residents to provide eye
care to inpatients and collaborate with
other specialties like neurology,
radiology, and ophthalmology.
Our mission statement includes fostering
lifelong learning, and achievement in the
profession for the betterment of patient
care.
We achieve this school by integrating a
healthy didactic program that is
directly correlated to the unique
patients that our residents examine.
Our didactic program consists of
optometry conference lectures, and
journal club, in addition to
ophthalmology grand rounds with
University Hospitals of Cleveland.
Our residency faculty values academia,
and we lead by example through our
fellowship in the American Academy of
Optometry and in addition to acting as
mentors to residents and assisting them
with poster submissions,
lectures, and writing up case reports.
Our didactic program is a true highlight
of our program and prepares our
residents to become excellent clinicians
in the exam lane and leaders in the eye
care community.
Hi I'm Cari Nealon and I'm one of the
staff optometrists. At the Cleveland VA
we are fortunate to have a blind
rehabilitation center which is one of
only 13 in the country. The Blind Rehab
Center provides both inpatient and
outpatient care for visually impaired
Veterans.
The optometry team works with a diverse
group of professionals including Blind
Rehab specialists, nursing, and social
work to create a comprehensive program
to help Veterans maintain their
independence.
We feel it is important to understand
how ocular disease affects our patients
functionally in day-to-day life and to
understand how vision rehabilitation can
drastically improve a veteran's life.
Welcome to the Cleveland VA Medical
Center Optometry Clinic. I'm Scott
Anthony, Chief of the Optometry Section.
As optometry section chief I oversee all
optometry clinical operations throughout
the VA Northeast Ohio Healthcare System,
including at the Medical Center where
our residents will complete their
clinical training.
At the Cleveland VA we are dedicated to
excellence in eye care using the latest
in ophthalmic imaging.
Combined with our talented optometrists
and staff, we are confident that our
residency at the Cleveland VA will
provide you with an enriching and
clinical environment to learn.
Our state of the art clinic is fully
equipped and organized to provide a safe
and clinical environment for both
patients and providers.
thank you for your interest in the
Cleveland VA Ocular Disease Residency
Program.
Working with
a lot of different doctors is great
because you are able to learn
every doctor's style. Everyone has their
own opinion and own way they manage
certain diseases, so it's a good way to
learn and then hone in those for your
own future practice. So there are a lot
of things that I value about this
experience. I think one that really
sticks out and one of the things that
drew me to this residency is a lot of
the retina exposure that we get. I think
sometimes as optometrists we don't get
to see or follow patients with
Wet AMD or Proliferative Diabetic
Retinopathy but here you get to work
alongside Dr. Eliff who's a fantastic
retinal ophthalmologist and
he really kind of emphasizes
the whole patient not just the eyes when
you're treating these diseases and i
think that there's a lot of value to
that
We see a whole variety of patients here,
and once you just read about what your
professors tell you that you'll never
see in your entire optometric career.
Easily the most valuable part of my time
here was actually being in a big
hospital.
The
when you're fresh out of school you know
you kind of know what you know but once
you're here in the big hospital you get
to see
what an optometrist does in the grand
scheme of health care.
So you get to see what your role is
in really providing health care to a
patient not just eye care.
But also you get to see just
how valuable what kind of services you
can provide are you're getting calls
from primary care from emergency rooms
so that they want to know what you would
do to help this patient and that was
just a really amazing, validating
experience.
There are lots of
instances that we have seeing different
patients that makes you really happy and
know that you're where you're supposed
to be.
Every single time i see something new
that i haven't seen in the past and get
to learn from that's really great and
whenever you have a patient that's just
so thankful for them
to be seen and you help them whether
it's just getting new glasses or
treating
you know a red eye something like that
they're really happy and thankful that
you want to see them.
Overall I've had a great experience at
the Cleveland VA so far I think it gives
you a little bit of everything you get
to see patients with contact lenses not
just soft contact lenses but some really
difficult fits with scleral lenses and
RGBs,
you get a lot of retina patients, you get
some anterior segment,
and you get some low vision.
Which
is kind of like a whole package fit into
a year which is fantastic I think it
makes you a really well-rounded
clinician.
Thanks for meeting our team. We welcome
you to reach out over email with
questions.
We know choosing a residency program is
a big decision, and wish all of our
prospective candidates the best luck in
finding the right match.