- Conducted at Ocular Surface Center
- Supported in part by Ocular Surface Foundation
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Dr.
Yeh and his wife with
Dr. Tseng and his wife (2001) |
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Dr.
Sun and Dr. Maskin visit of OSF (2001) |
Ocular Surface Foundation (OSF) is a non-profit public medical
research foundation (501c3) established in 1999, and carries s
single mission of promoting the spread of the knowledge and skills
that are important for treating ocular surface diseases. Under
the leadership of the President, Billy K. Yeh, M.D., Ph.D., OSF
supports research and educational programs that may create a differentiable
value in treating these diseases. OSF believes that one way of
accomplishing this mission is to promote the education and training
of young ophthalmologists that will be specialized in the diagnosis
and treatment of these diseases. OSF also believes that one important
way of gaining such new knowledge and skills is through effective
research and educational programs.
- Billy K. Yeh, M.D., Ph.D. President
- Tung-Tien Sun, M.D. Director
- V.K. Raju, M.D. Director
- Alice Shen, D.D.S. Director
- Steven L. Maskin, M.D. Director
- Kazuo Tsubota, M.D., Director
- Scheffer C. G. Tseng, M.D., Ph.D. Medical Director
The postdoctoral research fellowship is designed to provide a
state of art training in the newly established subspecialty of
Ocular Surface Diseases. Completion of the fellowship training
is expected to gain new knowledge and skills in clinical diagnosis
and treatments of these disorders, and to have developed independent
thinking for conducting basic and clinical research.
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The spirit of the fellowship program is to promote an ever-lasting
learning habit. One should not place a limit to what can be learned.
The contents of knowledge and skill that will be acquired can
be tailored according to each individual fellow's goal. If there
is a certain skill or knowledge that is not available in Ocular
Surface Center (OSC) but is important to achieve this objective,
it is the intention of OSC to make it available through collaboration
or outsourcing with other entities in the scientific or industrial
communities.
The fellowship is offered to individuals with a degree of M.D.
and/or Ph.D. or an equivalent degree from U.S.A. or abroad without
any discrimination of their age, sex, ethnic, political and religious
backgrounds. Although it is believed that the spread of new knowledge
should be non-discriminary to all, the position of fellowship
is limited by the resources available in OSC and OSF. Therefore,
the selection of prospective fellows is based on their academic
and intellectual merits and is competitive.
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All prospective candidates need to fill out the application form,
and submit their application, which includes a cover letter,
describing personal desire and aspiration for such a training,
the career goal, and future plan, a curriculum vitae, two recommendation
(reference) letters, and copies of the highest degree(s).
[Click
here to download the Fellowship Application Form-PDF]
These application materials can be submitted by mail, fax, or
e-mail to:
Scheffer C. G. Tseng, M.D., Ph.D., Director
Ocular Surface Research & Education Foundation and
Ocular Surface Center
7000 SW 97th Ave| Map This
Suite 213
Miami, FL 33173, USA
Voice: 305-274-1299, Fax: 305-274-1297
E-mail: stseng@ocularsurface.com
The fellowship in general requires one to two years of
training, of which the starting time can be flexible and tailored
to each individual's need. Under special circumstances, the duration
can be shortened. For those individuals who desire in-depth research
training and completion of publishable research projects, the
duration is advised to be longer than one year. It should be noted
that a short-term observership or clinical attachment for visiting
ophthalmologists, and an elective clerkship for medical students
to observe (without patient contact) both research and
clinical activities at the OSF or OSC are also available.
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At the moment, there is a limited financial support available
to provide the stipend, which covers the room and boarding, and
the health benefit to the fellow or his or her spouse and family.
It is thus expected that each fellow will have to provide his
(her) own financial support. For this reason, selection of fellows
tends to be more favorable to those applicants whose financial
supports are certified. It is thus important to describe and provide
certified documents to testify this fact in the application. The
financial support may be from a third party. For example, such
documents may include a certified letter from the authority where
the prospective candidate is presently working with or is to join
upon completion of the fellowship training. Alternatively, the
financial support may come from a private source, e.g., a foundation
where such a certified letter will have to come from.
Under exceptional circumstances, a partial, if not full, financial
support may be available from OSF for the candidate with outstanding
qualification but a limited financial resource.
Financial support is crucial for those candidates from abroad
in order for the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)
to issue a valid visa.
A written offer will be issued by Medical Director after a review
of all application materials. This letter certifies that the fellowship
is officially granted. For fellows coming from abroad, the visa
will be processed by a legal office and the processing fee will
be covered by OSF. OSF has obtained the approval from the US Department
of State to sponsor a J-1 visa (i.e., for exchange students or
scholars).
[Click here to download Orientation
Material and Pre-arrival
Material]
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The fellowship training will consist of the program to achieve
the following goals:
A. Review Basic and Clinical Knowledge
The basic and clinical knowledge includes what has been reported
in the literature or produced by OSC in the past. It is worth
noting that most of this knowledge has not been well stated in
the textbooks or considered "conventional". This will
be systemically reviewed within a calendar year through weekly
seminars given by Medical Director or the assigned fellow(s) [see
the attached for an example]. This activity will be posted as
a part of the educational program. The fellow who participates
in this program is expected to acquire the updated knowledge of
the subjects, learn how to present the information effectively,
develop an ability of critical analysis, and furnish his or her
collection of teaching slides upon completion for future use.
The subjects that will be covered include but not limited to:
- Important Concepts of Ocular Surface Health
- Diagnostic strategies of Ocular Surface and Tear Disorders:
An Integrated Approach
- Disorders Related to Lacirmal Glands Leading to Aqueous Tear
Deficiency
- Disorders Related to Meibomian Glands Leading to Lipid Tear
Deficiency
- Differential Diagnosis of Aqueous and Lipid Tear Deficiency
- Disorders Related to Ocular Sensitivity Leading to Neurotrophic
Keratopathy
- Disorders Related to Lid Blinking: Excessive or Insufficiency
- Disorders Related to Tear Clearance
- New Paradigm for Wound Healing of Ocular Surface
- Inflammation and Immune Dysregulation
- Regulation of Epithelial Stem Cells
- Corneal Diseases with Limbal Stem Cell Deficiency
- Therapeutic Strategies of Ocular Surface and Tear Disorders,
especially with
respect to Non-specific Ocular Irritation
- Pterygium: New Understanding of Pathogenesis and Surgical
Techniques
- Limbal Stem Cell Transplantation: Autografts and Allografts
- New Strategies of Ocular Surface Reconstruction: Part 1: To
Restore Ocular Surface Defense
- New Strategies of Ocular Surface Reconstruction: Part 2: To
Restore Epithelial Stem Cells
- New Strategies of Ocular Surface Reconstruction: Part 3:
To Restore Stem Cell Niche by Amniotic Membrane Transplantation
- Ex vivo Expansion of Epithelial Stem Cells
- Tissue Engineering
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B. Search for New Clinical and Basic Science Knowledge
The topics that will be selected are solely dependent on activities
of the fellowship, i.e., clinical problems encountered in the
clinic, research questions raised during discussion or experiments,
and mandatory reviews of most recent key basic and clinical journals.
These topics will broaden the knowledge useful for understanding
the ocular surface health and diseases. These topics will be integrated
to the aforementioned weekly seminar [also see the attached example
for year 2002].
[Click here to download
Seminar Series for Year 2002]
C. Learn Scientific Methods of Research
It is expected that all fellows will adhere to the following
important principles that guide all research conducted at OSC.
Firstly, the ultimate purpose of doing research is to
improve one's independent and effective thinking process, and
not for a mere publication. Secondly, a research is worth
doing only when it carries a sound testable hypothesis and a
superior novelty (originality). Thirdly, no project will
be started without a written protocol, which describes the key
elements of Introduction, Hypothesis, Methods, and Expected
Results. Fourthly,
experimentation and data recording will be conducted following
the guidelines described in "Good Laboratory Practice".
Fifthly, results will be analyzed timely and thoroughly
before next experimentation [also see Seminar Schedule 2002
for an example].
[Click here to download
Seminar Series for Year 2002]
The fellows are encouraged to read the seminar paper written
by Dr. Tung-Tien Sun regarding Scientific Methods
[Click here to download
PDF file 1]
[Click here to download
PDF file 2]
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D. Acquire Clinical Skills
The fellow is expected to learn how to formulate an integrated
and dynamic diagnostic approach for various ocular surface disorders.
This is achieved by participating in basic and clinical research
projects and by observing in the clinic how each patient has been
worked up through sequential steps of diagnostic tests. Each interesting
case will be summed up and discussed in a weekly seminar, from
which a new research project may be generated. In addition, the
fellow is expected to review a library collection of videotapes
now available in OSC that show how different surgical procedures
are performed for ocular surface reconstruction, a library collection
of impression cytology available in OSC on various ocular surface
disorders. Furthermore, the fellow will attend the surgical theater
to observe these surgical procedures are actually performed in
patients and their postoperative management. There is no patient
contact for foreign fellows.
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