Glaucoma Fellowship

Overview

The glaucoma fellowship is a one-year AUPO FC approved training program, whose mission to prepare the best glaucoma specialists to enter an academic career or one in private practice. Our fellows graduate with a strong armamentarium of clinical, surgical, and professional skills.

The fellowship training occurs through a one-on-one mentorship with the various glaucoma faculty in clinic and in the operating room. Glaucoma surgical procedures performed by our faculty include:

• Trabeculectomy.
• Glaucoma drainage implants (Ahmed, Baerveldt, ClearPath).
• MIGS (Kahook Dual Blade, TrabEx, GATT, Omni, iStent/Inject, Hydrus, Xen).
• Trabeculotomy/goniotomy.
• Transscleral cyclophotocoagulation (both traditional and micropulse).

Our surgical repertoire is constantly expanding, and the administration is supportive in ensuring we have access to the latest glaucoma surgical technology.

The glaucoma faculty are all fellowship-trained. We work closely with our colleagues in the other departments to coordinate both clinical and surgical care for the most complicated eye diseases. The glaucoma fellow will have ample exposure to the excellent faculty in other Cole Eye departments during the course of caring for conditions such as childhood syndromic glaucomas, uveitic glaucoma, neovascular glaucoma, and glaucoma in corneal transplants.

Cole Eye Institute 2022

By the Numbers

• 25 locations
• 61 ophthalmologists (with multiple additional hires late 2022)
• 39 optometrists
• 18 research scientists
• 323,861 patient visits in 2021
• 18,010 eye surgeries in 2021
• 14 researchers with federal funding, (including 13 with RO1 in 2021)
• 53 clinical trials in 2021
• $5.9 Million in basic science external funding (2021)
• At main campus:
  • 7 OCT machines
  • 4 visual field machines
  • 2 Pascal lasers
  • 2 YAG lasers
  • 1 Duet SLT/YAG laser
  • 5 eye operating rooms

Cole Eye Graduate Medication Education

• 12 fellows (1 glaucoma fellow)
• 5 residents per class 2023 (4 per class starting 2022 and earlier)

Teaching Faculty

Jonathan Eisengart, MD
Program Director

Mary Qiu
Associate Program Director

Ang Li, MD
Staff

Daniel Petkovsek, MD
Staff

Annapurna Singh, MD
Staff

Shalini Sood, MD
Staff

Educational Environment

The glaucoma faculty are dedicated to the training and experience of the glaucoma fellow. The glaucoma fellow is considered to be a future colleague and a friend, and is always treated with respect in a congenial and professional atmosphere.

While service is important, the faculty recognize that learning is the primary objective of the fellowship. To this end, the fellow’s schedule remains flexible so that he or she remains free to participate in important learning opportunities. For example, the fellow may leave the assigned clinic to participate in an unusual pediatric surgery, or simply to see one of his or her post-op patients from the prior day.

Cole Eye Institute has an incredible breadth of experienced talented faculty across all the ophthalmic subspecialties. The glaucoma fellow benefits immensely from working with these faculty during the patient-care process. Hearing expert opinions on a wide variety of complex diseases teaches our fellows to most efficiently handle the challenging situations they will see in their own career, and allows them to serve as a valuable resource for their future colleagues.

Additionally, our fellows are embedded in an environment with a superior electronic medical record experience. They learn how to be highly effective and efficient in clinic and how to interact and supervise ancillary personnel. Fellows will been able to personally examine and plan the management of patients in a busy and fast-moving clinic. We believe these experiences are extremely important in their future clinical practice.

Surgery & Clinical Rotations

Clinical rotations

Typically the fellow is in clinic 3-4 days weekly and in the operating room 1-2 days weekly. Clinics begin at 7:30am, and afternoon sessions usually end around 5pm. The fellow will typically have a half-day each week for research and administrative duties. As mentioned previously, the faculty are happy to modify the schedule as needed for the benefit of the fellow’s educational experience. Rotations are organized so that the fellow will have an opportunity to work with each of the faculty individually in a one-on-one setting.

While a majority of the fellow experience occurs at the main campus, rotations to Lorain and other satellites are incorporated to ensure the best educational experience for the fellow.

Although a 3rd year resident is almost always rotating on the glaucoma service, seldom will the fellow and resident be in the same clinic or operating room simultaneously. In this way, both the resident and fellow get full one-on-one time with the glaucoma faculty. However, all the clinics are located in the same area, so interaction between the fellows and residents is encouraged.

Surgical experience

Glaucoma fellows at the Cole Eye Institute train with experienced surgeons and consistently graduate with a large number of eye procedures as primary surgeon. All surgeries are performed on patients from attending clinics under the direct supervision of the attending. There are a large complement of patients with complex problems and re-operations. Glaucoma surgeries are performed at main campus as well as the Lorain satellite. As the fellowship year progresses, more and more of these challenging cases will be turned over to the fellow.

Benefits

Salary & benefits

Cleveland Clinic offers a strong salary and benefits package. Fellows are paid at the PGY 5 level.

Highlights include:

• Health, prescription, vision, dental benefits
  • Cleveland Clinic health insurance for you and your family at 50% the cost of other Cleveland Clinic employees.
  • Disability and Life insurance. Malpractice insurance that does not require the purchase of a “tail” when you leave.
• Medical license fees paid for by the Cleveland Clinic
• 3 weeks of vacation (15 working days)
  • Additional time and money for conference (AAO, AGS, etc)
  • Extra time for job interviews (7 days)
  • Does not have to be taken one week at a time
  • Time off for national boards
• Access to Cleveland Clinic fitness facilities and pool.
• Retirement savings programs and flexible spending accounts available.

Find complete benefit information, including up-to-date salary numbers.

Call Schedules

Fellows will take about 4 weeks of general/trauma attending call as backup to the residents who take first call. Typically this entails coming in for trauma and weekend inpatient consults. Holiday calls are covered by attending staff, not fellows who often want to leave town to see family.

The glaucoma fellow is expected to be available to the residents who are on primary call for advice or to evaluate a glaucoma emergency. If the glaucoma fellow needs to leave town on the weekend, it is anticipated the fellow will make the glaucoma faculty and resident on call aware. Additionally, the fellow may be asked to cover for the residents during OKAP examinations.

Often during regular business hours, the glaucoma fellow is asked to see urgent patients in the “same day access” clinic, or in other subspecialty clinics, should a glaucoma urgency arise. Infrequently, the glaucoma fellow is asked to staff the “same day access” clinic for a ½ day. This clinic accepts urgent visits for just about any eye problem, and functions during regular business hours at Cole Eye. These opportunities offer the fellow the chance to evaluate and manage patients independently. Attending staff backup is always readily available to the glaucoma fellow.