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Ophthalmology Residency Program

Ophthalmology Residency Program

Learn more about why the Shiley Eye Institutes residency program is perfect for your development as a doctor

The UC San Diego Viterbi Family Department of Ophthalmology Residency Program emphasizes excellence, ethics, and humanity while training residents to become exceptional ophthalmologists equipped to succeed in any aspect of ophthalmology.

Our Residency Program Overview

During the program’s four years, residents are provided with clinical exposure in multiple facilities to gain mastery of the ophthalmology knowledge and judgment needed while assuming increasing levels of responsibility for the medical and surgical management of patients with a wide variety of acute and chronic ophthalmic diseases. Because we recognize that ophthalmology education continues beyond the residency training years, we emphasize the importance of self-directed study habits.

Four residents begin each July for a total of sixteen trainees. While training at our multiple facilities, each resident is exposed to a high volume of cases in a diverse patient population with a wide variety of ophthalmic needs—all of this while being given increasing responsibilities in a one-on-one teaching environment with our attendings.

For more information on the UC San Diego Viterbi Family Department of Ophthalmology Residency Program, please contact Robyn Austin, Residency Program Manager, at rkaustin@health.ucsd.edu

Meet Robyn and learn more about the program in the video to the right!

How to Apply

The UCSD Department of Ophthalmology takes four residents per year, exclusively through the Central Application Service (CAS) provided by the San Francisco Matching Program (SF Match): https://www.sfmatch.org/.

In addition to the CAS materials requested by the SF Match you are welcome to send any additional documents you would like to add to your application to our Program Manager at Shiley-residency@health.ucsd.edu or rkaustin@health.ucsd.edu.

Typically, the SF Match sends more than 500 applicant files for us to review for our four positions, and we invite about 10% of these in late November / early December (dates are chosen each year). While no absolute selection criteria exist, the Residency Selection Committee considers the following:

  • Academic credentials (e.g.: USMLE scores, performance in medical school, performance on clinical rotations)
  • Evidence of academic potential
  • Evidence of commitment to Ophthalmology (performance reports for ophthalmology electives; related research interests during medical school; outside activities such as clubs, publications, volunteer work; etc.)
  • Personal statement
  • Letters of recommendation
  • For non-citizen applicants, the required J-1 visa

Frequently Asked Questions

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What Type of Surgical Experience Can Residents Expect from the Program?

The Shiley Institute prides itself on preparing our residence with real world surgical experience. Types of surgeries you can expect include but are not limited to:

  • Cataract Surgery
  • Oculoplastic Surgery
  • Navy Refractive Rotation

A breakdown of cases performed by our residence for the 2022-2023 year are as follows:

  • Phacoemulsification: 160-260 cases
  • Pan retinal photocoagulation: 13-34 cases
  • Refractive surgery: 15-92 cases
  • Strabismus surgery: 17-51 cases
  • Glaucoma drainage device: 5-28 cases
  • Intravitreal injection: 100-217 cases
  • Ptosis repair: 22-64 cases
  • Blepharoplasty: 36-73 cases
  • Ruptured globe repair: 3-13 cases

Meet the Team

Training Doctors

Robert N. Weinreb

Current Class

Rafaella Cleto Penteado

Helena Gali, MD

Andrew C. H. Lin

George Villatoro

Jimmy S. Chen

Success After Program

Alex Huang, MD, PhD

Abigail Huang, MD

Locations for the Program

Shiley Eye Institute Campus

The Shiley Eye Institute is a state-of-the-art, free-standing outpatient facility centrally located on UCSDs campus.

UCSD Medical Center Hillcrest Eye Care

About a twenty-minute drive from Shiley is the UC San Diego Medical Center/Hillcrest, a Level I Trauma Center that includes a 434 bed hospital and ambulatory care facility.

Our Program By The Numbers

To give you an idea of what our dozen residents might experience, here are some data from our department’s 2022 Annual Report:

• A combined 140,812 Patient Visits (all sites)
• 8,126 Surgeries
• 65 NIH Grants
• 204 Publications
• 35 Clinical Trials
• 1,181 Free pairs of glasses given by the EyeMobile
• 1,634 Free dilated exams by the EyeMobile
• 122 children identified as high risk who would not have otherwise been treated

More Numbers

• Patient age span from 1 to 108 years of age
• 14 US patents issued by the faculty
• Received 21 invention licenses
• Created 15 start-up companies
• 227 faculty and staff
• 129 Lectures
• 549 Residents & Fellows trained since 1972 from 39 countries
• 241,060 EyeMobile Free Vision Screenings in San Diego County (Since 1999)

The 91,000’ square Shiley Eye Institute includes the Ratner Children’s Center, the Jacobs Retina Center, and the Hamilton Glaucoma Center—clinics, surgery suites, research labs, administrative space, and, in the main Shiley building, the Weyland Residency  Library. Because we are a multi-facility department with a complex patient profile, the clinical and surgical experience of the UC San Diego Ophthalmology resident is outstanding. Several Faculty have been added in the past couple of years which has opened up more  surgical opportunities to residents, as evidenced by the following surgical totals reported by our recent graduates:

• For the combined 2014 to 2018, total procedures averaged over 1000 per resident year as the primary surgeon

Why Join Us at Shiley?

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