Clinical Glaucoma Fellowship

Dr. M. Bruce Shields and Dr. Marc Bodman review digital images of the optic nerve on a patient with glaucoma.

The Clinical Glaucoma Fellowship at the Yale Eye Center is a one-year program, usually beginning in July. The Glaucoma Fellow becomes an active member of the Glaucoma Section, working closely with the clinical faculty — Nils Loewen, MD, PhD; Hylton R. Mayer, MD; M. Bruce Shields, MD; and James C. Tsai, MD, FACS — and the Glaucoma Resident in the clinical and surgical care of our glaucoma patients.

Facilities

The 5000-square feet Glaucoma Clinic includes an array of state-of-the-art equipment including:

• 12 fully equipped examination rooms
• a laser treatment room with argon, SLT, YAG, and diode lasers
• a perimetry suite with Octopus, Humphrey, and Goldmann perimeters
• a photography and optic disc imaging room with state-of-the-art fundus cameras for color stereo and nerve fiber layer photography, Spectral Domain OCT, and a confocal laser tomography system (HRT3)
• anterior segment evaluation with UBM and Visante OCT testing

A portion of the fellow's week is spent on this service, examining patients with faculty members and performing laser surgery, which includes trabeculoplasties, iridotomies, and cyclophotocoagulation.

Surgical prodecures

Incisional surgery is performed at the Temple Surgical Center and also at Yale-New Haven Hospital. In all, there are four dedicated, fully-equipped operating rooms with ceiling-mounted or floor-based operating microscopes. Surgical procedures performed by the Glaucoma Section include:

• trabeculectomies with and without antimetabolites
• drainage implant devices
• trabeculotomies and goniotomies (for childhood glaucomas)
• clear cornea phacoemulsification with foldable lenses
• combined phacoemulsification and trabeculectomy for patients with co-existing cataracts and glaucoma

The fellow will either assist a faculty member in these procedures or serve as primary surgeon with assistance by a faculty member. In some cases, the fellow may also be asked to assist a resident in surgery, especially at the West Haven Veterans Administration Hospital.

Responsibilities

The Glaucoma Fellow has certain independent responsibilities in addition to his/her training at the Glaucoma Clinic and Temple Surgical Center.

• As a Clinical Instructor faculty member, the fellow participates in the on-call schedule with other faculty members. This involves backing up the residents for night-time and weekend emergencies and occasionally assisting the residents in or performing emergency surgery.
• The Glaucoma Fellow is also responsible for examining patients together with the residents one-half day per week in the hospital-based Eye Clinic. This is one source of the fellow's salary.
• The Fellow also participates in the Glaucoma Conferences and various other activities.

Research

Although this is a clinical fellowship, participation in research projects is encouraged and desired. We anticipate that one or more of the research projects performed by our fellows will lead to publications in peer-reviewed journals.

• The research projects are primarily of a clinical nature, such as clinical drug trials, and provide another source of income for generation of salary. Although basic research is not a typical part of the clinical fellowship, the laboratories of Dr. Miguel Coca-Prados and Dr. James C. Tsai are available to those with special interests. In some cases, a two-year fellowship can be arranged, with one year in the laboratory.

How to Apply

To apply for a Clinical Glaucoma Fellowship at Yale, or to learn more about the Program, contact Adrienne Roselle at 203.785.6288 or adrienne.roselle@yale.edu.