Curriculum

In addition to rotations at the Harkness Eye Institute, Columbia residents spend 3 months in each PGY-year at Harlem Hospital Center, a public, municipally owned teaching hospital affiliated with Columbia University. Harlem Hospital Center provides a tremendous breadth of pathology that fully complements the experience at the Eye Institute. Patients are seen daily in the ambulatory clinic, and surgical procedures including cataracts, glaucoma, cornea, plastics, and strabismus cases are performed on site in state-of-the-art operating rooms. In this rotation, residents are immersed in a diverse patient care environment and can offer superlative medical care to a population in need.

PGY2-4 years cover ophthalmic call. At Columbia, call includes a heavy primary-call schedule during the PGY2 year, supplemented by PGY3 coverage. PGY4 coverage is considered ‘senior’ in level, allowing for direct mentorship of junior residents and both coordination and participation in emergent surgeries. Residents rotating through Harlem Hospital cover call there during their rotation.

Each morning via teleconferencing, residents review challenging overnight call cases and inpatient consults with a rotating schedule of our outstanding faculty members. Morning report is a fantastic opportunity for learning and is also a critical part of sign-out and continuity of care.

With Dr. James Auran and our dedicated faculty, we have developed a robust surgical curriculum that begins with suturing skills education in July, followed by a suturing olympics obstacle course in the fall. In addition, we have an annual cataract symposium with all anterior segment faculty each summer, and dedicated specialty-specific dry and wet labs that occur throughout the year. Residents practice microscope centration, tissue handling, wound construction, and specific surgical techniques with a combination of virtual simulation, porcine and model eyes. Each first-year resident is paired with a third-year buddy and a faculty mentor to develop fundamental surgical skills before performing the first primary case. Surgical procedures are introduced early in residency training to build skills over a longer period.

Since 1941, the Columbia BSCO has been educating attendees from around the world on the fundamentals and cutting-edge topics of vision science. Each January, the first-year residents are excused from clinical activities to attend this fantastic course.  

Our Columbia Ophthalmology Youtube Channel features surgical videos by our distinguished surgeons. Students and trainees access these resources to be better prepared when it is time to operate with our faculty. In addition to patient education videos, we also have an ever-growing library of fun graduation music videos featuring our own “Harkness Tonometers” that give you a glimpse of our culture in the department.

In addition to our Mock OKAP exam that we administer in November, our faculty administer Mock Oral examinations annually to better prepare them for the Oral Board examination. Each resident is provided a subscription to the AAO online question bank. The residents with the highest OKAP scores each year earn the “Harkness Award” for outstanding performance on the examination. 

Upon graduating from the program, our highly skilled residents may choose to enter comprehensive practice or complete ophthalmic subspecialty training at the most prestigious fellowships in the country. Many of our graduates have gone on to faculty and leadership positions at top academic institutions, including UCSF, Mass Eye and Ear, Emory, Wills Eye Hospital, Columbia, Wilmer, and UCLA. Others have served as successful leaders of their communities, practices, and our national societies.

Our trainees have access to robust instructional resources, including our new state-of-the-art surgical wet lab and the HelpMeSee haptic-based eye surgery simulator. Trainees also have access to video-indirect ophthalmoscopy systems and our Columbia Ophthalmology Youtube channel. These resources prepare our trainees for when the time comes to assist or operate alongside our faculty.

Seniors participate in a 1–2-week elective of their choosing to develop interests and experiences that may not occur during the normal scope of training. Recent electives have ranged from global trips to Guatemala, to an elective with an ocular geneticist at another institution, to an elective mini-internship at the Bausch and Lomb Headquarters.

In 2023-2024, the Harkness Eye Institute began a new chapter in its storied history. Our 'old dame' building will be replaced with the Beacon, a cutting-edge ambulatory center incorporating outpatient surgical care, infusion centers, imaging, oncologic care and ophthalmic care. A brand-new Eye Institute is being actively mapped to anticipate cutting edge needs for the next century. Our main campus surgical and clinical care has transitioned to fully gut-renovated spaces on campus; these offer the same state-of-the-art equipment and environment that our faculty, trainees, and patients associate with Columbia. Rotation experiences at our faculty practice satellite offices and Harlem Hospital have been enhanced by the development of our new offices at Lincoln Center (The Robert Burch Eye Center), and in Westchester (The One).