Leadership in ophthalmology training : Opportunities and risks of medical specialist education

Abstract

Medical specialist training requires constant improvement and adaptation of the contents to the current situation. Nowadays, young physicians have the opportunity to select among the most renowned institutions and can choose the best qualified for their training. Hospitals on the other hand still have the desire to recruit highly qualified physicians for continuing education, which requires agood, well-rounded and reliable offer by the department under good leadership. Thus, among other issues amodern and multilingual homepage is already an important instrument for successfully addressing applicants and winning them over for the department. In addition to awell-planned and structured training plan (e.g., the Homburg curriculum) and aso-called resident guide, many other additional offers are nowadays part of asuccessful training, such as structured internal and external continuing education, well thought out research concepts available to all interested parties, wet labs for practical exercises on pig's eyes and as the latest most innovative addition, avirtual reality simulator. Due to astructured curriculum with regular continuous education during the daily early morning meetings and an exchange program with another university eye hospital, not only the residents can benefit but ultimately also the department itself. In addition, future specialists are involved in the respective organization (so-called service teams) from the very beginning. This conveys agreat deal of knowledge and expertise but also organizational skills and thus improves the quality of training. In any case, standardized residency training with aview beyond the horizon, which is transparently organized and reliably carried out, improves the quality of training in order to become acertified ophthalmologist and increases the satisfaction of the residents. Adepartment which is committed and can offer awide range of services will benefit from motivated and satisfied employees in agood interpersonal climate, which in the end benefits not only the team but also the patients.