The Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences is proud to announce that it received official notification and final funding approval for a four-year integrated residency program.

This change will add an integrated internship year to the current three-year ophthalmology training for residents. “This has been several years in the making, and we are excited about this addition to our program,” said Russell Read, MD, PhD, Program Director of the UAB Ophthalmology Residency Program. “The department will be able to determine what rotations our interns will perform and allow us to create an outstanding experience that will directly lead to a superior training experience that will, we hope, become a major factor in our ability to recruit future residents.” 

The internship curriculum will be based on the common areas of medicine outside of ophthalmology but with fields that routinely intersect with our specialty. Interns will be able to rotate through services, including neurology, neuro-radiology, dermatology, emergency rooms at UAB and Children’s, anesthesia, and internal medicine, in addition to their three-month internship with ophthalmology.

“For the three months of the ophthalmology rotation, the current plan is to have all five interns here at Callahan for the month of June, so they will be able to begin their orientation toward being full time in ophthalmology. For their other two months, each will do two one-month rotations, one in the first half of the academic year and one in the second half,” said Read. “We are excited for the opportunities this provides us to continue our mission becoming the premier ophthalmology training program.”

The four-year integrated residency program will begin July 1, 2022.