Ophthalmology Specialty:(Regular)

Ophthalmology Specialty:(Regular)

OBJECTIVES: 
GENERAL OBJECTIVES

• To train ophthalmologists capable of practicing surgery independently, safely, and competently with a strong ethical foundation at the specialist level, able to teach and undertake clinical research with life-long learning spirit.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
At the end of four years of training the resident will be able to:

• Analyze Ethiopia’s eye health policies and strategies as well as the community eye health needs.
• Conduct clinical and/or community research related to eye health.
• Demonstrate leadership, teaching, and communication skills.
• Explain biomedical and clinical basis that underlies surgical conditions.
• Promote values and ethics of medical professionalism and a commitment to service.

Entry Requirements
Academic requirements: 

• The candidate should be a holder of a degree of Doctor of Medicine from a recognized university/college.
• The candidate must be a registered general practitioner by the Federal Ministry of Health of Ethiopia.
• The candidate must pass the national entrance written examination and interview.
• Foreign applicants must hold a degree of Doctor of Medicine, must produce their professional license, and a letter of good standing from their local accreditation body.
• Admission of foreign applicants shall be governed by the legislation of the University/College.

Non-academic requirements:

• Applicants must be in acceptable physical and mental health, without any serious health conditions that would limit their ability to cope with the requirements of the training program and service. 
• Applicant would undergo ophthalmic examination for fitness (Visual Acuity, color vision test, stereopsis, alignment tests and slit-lamp examination).  Specific values of requirement will be set for each eye examination tests based on international references.
• The department reserves the right to deny admission to unfit candidates (after medical checkup) as determined by the department council.
• Applicants should not be older than 40 years of age.

Duration of Study: four years 
GRADUATE PROFILE
The ophthalmologist takes up the 7 CanMEds roles that form the competency framework of the Ethiopian undergraduate medical school and ophthalmology residency programs.
1.1.MEDICAL EXPERT
As Medical Experts, they integrate all roles: medical knowledge, clinical skills, and professional attitudes in order to ensure high-quality and safe, patient-centered care. They collect and interpret information, make clinical decisions, and carryout diagnostic and therapeutic interventions. They do so within their scope of practice and with an understanding of the limits of their expertise. Their decision-making is informed by best practices and research evidence and takes into account the patient’s circumstances and preferences as well as the availability of resources. Their clinical practice is up-to-date, ethical, and resource-efficient. Their clinical practice is conducted in collaboration with the patients and their families as well as other health care professionals and the community.
1.2.COMMUNICATOR
Communication skills refer to interpersonal communication skills that result in effective information exchange and collaboration with patients, patients’ families, professional associates, and the community at large. They enable patient-centered, therapeutic communication by exploring the patient’s symptoms, which may be suggestive of disease, and by actively listening to the patient’s experiences with his or her illness. They explore the patient’s perspective, including his or her fears, ideas about the illness, feelings about the impact of the illness, and expectations of their health care. They integrate the following to understand the patient’s context: their socio-economic status, medical history, family history, stage of life, living situation, work or school setting, and other relevant psychological and social issues. Central to a patient- centered approach is shared decision-making: finding common ground with the patient in developing a plan to address his or her medical problems and health goals in a manner that reflects the patient’s needs, values, and preferences. This plan should be informed by evidence and guidelines. Because illness affects not only patients but also their families, physicians must be able to communicate effectively with everyone involved in the patient’s care.
1.3.COLLABORATORS
As Collaborators, residents work effectively with other ophthalmologists, health care professionals, and support staff to provide safe, high-quality, and compassionate patient-centered care. Collaboration is essential for safe, high-quality, patient-centered care, and involves patients and their families, physicians and other colleagues in the health care professions, community partners, and health system stakeholders. Collaboration requires relationships based on trust, respect, and shared decision-making among a variety of individuals with complementary skills in multiple settings across the continuum of care. It involves sharing knowledge, perspectives, and responsibilities, and a willingness to learn together. This requires understanding the roles of others, pursuing common goals and outcomes, and managing differences. Collaboration skills are broadly applicable to activities beyond clinical care, such as administration, education, advocacy, and scholarship.
1.4.LEADER
As Leaders, they develop a vision of a high-quality eye health care system and, in collaboration with other eye care and health care leaders, take responsibility for effecting change to move the system toward the achievement of that vision. They exercise collaborative leadership within the complex health care systems that form their specific work environments for eye care and specifically for uveitis patients. At a system level, they contribute to the development and delivery of continuously improving eye health care and engage others to work with them toward this vision. They must balance their personal lives with their responsibilities as leaders and managers in their everyday clinical, administrative, research, and teaching activities. They function as individual care providers, as members of teams or groups, and as participants and leaders in the health care system locally, regionally, nationally, and globally. This role describes the active engagement as leaders and managers in decision making in the operation and ongoing evolution of the health care system and guide on how the eye care system fits there.
1.5.EYE HEALTH ADVOCATE
As eye health advocates, they contribute their expertise and influence as they work to be role models for communities or patient populations to improve eye health. They work with those they serve to determine and understand needs, speak on behalf of others when needed, and support the mobilization of resources to effect change. They consider the cultural context of the community whenever they engage in eye health advocacy and promotion. They recognize their duty to participate in efforts to improve the health and well-being of their patients, their communities, and the broader populations they serve. They possess medical knowledge and abilities that provide unique perspectives on health. They also have privileged access to patients’ accounts of their experience with illness and the health care system. They are not limited to the clinical practice, but also involve in disease prevention, screening, eye and general health promotion, surveillance, and health protection. Improving health also includes promoting health equity, whereby individuals and populations reach their full health potential without being disadvantaged by, for example, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, age, social class, economic status, or level of education.
They leverage their position to support patients in navigating the health care system and to advocate with them to access appropriate resources in a timely manner. They seek to improve the quality of both their clinical practice and associated organizations by addressing the needs of the patients, communities, or populations they serve. They promote healthy communities and populations by influencing the system (or by supporting others who influence the system), both within and outside of their work environments. Advocacy requires action. They contribute their knowledge of the determinants of health to positively influence the health of the patients, communities, or populations they serve. They take steps to maintain their own physical and mental health, using coping strategies and seeking appropriate assistance as needed; in this way, they serve as role models by advocating for and promoting healthy life style. They gather information and perceptions about issues, working with patients and their families to develop an understanding of needs and potential mechanisms to address these needs. They support patients, communities, and populations to call for change and they speak on behalf of others when needed. They increase awareness about important health issues at the patient, community, and population level. They support or lead the mobilization of resources (e.g., financial, material, or human resources) on small and large scales.
1.6.SCHOLAR
As Scholars, they demonstrate a lifelong commitment to excellence in practice through continuous learning, the teaching of others, the evaluation of evidence, and contributions to scholarship. They acquire scholarly abilities to enhance practice and advance health care. They pursue excellence by continually evaluating the processes and outcomes of their daily work, sharing, and comparing their work with that of others while actively seeking feedback in the interest of quality and patient safety. Using multiple ways of learning, they strive to meet the needs of individual patients and their families and for the health care system at large. They strive to master their domains of expertise and to share their knowledge. As lifelong learners, they implement a planned approach to learning in order to improve in each role. They recognize the need to continually learn and to model the practice of lifelong learning for others. As teachers, they facilitate, individually and through teams, the education of students and residents, colleagues, co-workers, the public, and others. They are able to identify pertinent evidence, evaluate it using specific criteria, and apply it in their scholarly activities and practice. Through their engagement in evidence-informed and shared decision-making, they recognize uncertainty in practice and formulate questions to address knowledge gaps. Using skills in navigating information resources, they identify evidence syntheses that are relevant to these questions and arrive at clinical decisions that are informed by evidence, while taking patient values and preferences into account. Finally, their scholarly abilities allow them to contribute to the application, dissemination, translation, and creation of knowledge and practices applicable to eye health.
1.7.PROFESSIONAL
As Professionals, they are committed to the health and well-being of individual patients and society through ethical practice, high personal standards of behavior, dedication to the profession, profession-led regulation, and maintenance of personal health. They serve an essential role as professionals dedicated to the health and care of others. Their work requires mastery of the art, science, and practice of medicine. The professional identity of physicians has developed over millennia, and the professional role reflects contemporary society’s expectations of physicians. This role includes clinical competence, a commitment to ongoing professional development, a promotion of the public good, and an adherence to ethical standards and values, such as integrity, honesty, altruism, respect for diversity, and transparency with respect to potential conflicts of interest. It is also recognized that to provide optimal patient care, physicians must take responsibility for their own health and well-being and that of their colleagues. Professionalism is the basis of the implicit contract between society and the medical profession; they are granted the privilege of profession-led regulation with the understanding that they are accountable to those served, to society, to their profession, and to themselves.
Graduation Requirements
The following are mandatory requirements for completion and eligibility for certification:

• Completion of the 4 years of residency
• Submission of the research thesis
• Achieve the minimum required number of activities noted with satisfactory level of competence
• Achieve a score of 70% or above in the final summative assessment

Degree nomenclature
•After successful completion of the training and fulfilling the graduation requirement, the University Senate, upon recommendation by the Academic Commission, shall award the Specialty Certificate to the graduate titled as:

“Specialty Certificate in Ophthalmology”

      “የስፔሻሊቲ ሰርተፊኬት በዐይን ህክምና”
List and semester breakdown of courses

Year	Module	Duration
One	Integrated Ophthalmology I CRC I	11 months
Annual Leave	1 month
Two	Integrated Ophthalmology II CRC II	11 months
Annual Leave	1 month
Three	Integrated Ophthalmology III CRC III	11 months
Annual Leave	1 month
Four	Integrated Ophthalmology IV CRC IV	10 months
Research Thesis Leave	1 month
Annual Leave