Hometown: Lanham, Maryland

Third-year Resident-2005-06

Undergraduate: Duke University

Medical School: Drexel University School of Medicine

The Duke Eye Center is a wonderful place for clinical care, research, and education. Through my three years of residency I have learned that it is the people within the institution that make the Duke Eye Center a great place to be. 

Though very familiar with the Duke University campus from my days as a Duke undergrad, it was not until my fourth year of medical school that I first stepped into the Duke Eye Center. The faculty members with whom I worked were world-class and renowned in their subspecialties, yet approachable and committed to educating fellows, residents, and medical students. I also had the opportunity to work closely with the Duke Eye Center residents while at the Durham Veterans Affairs Hospital (Durham VA) and on-call. The residents were great as well— highly intelligent, eager to teach, and fun to work with. The Duke Eye Center impressed me as a very well-rounded place to be. 

Duke was my first choice for residency training. I was fortunate to match here, and I got the chance to return to the Durham VA as one of those Duke Eye Center residents whom I had revered when I was a medical student. One of my favorite aspects of residency has been the chance to rotate through the VA hospital system as a first-, second,- and finally, as a third-year resident. As a first-year resident, I saw high volumes of patients in the general clinic, and received early exposure to performing lasers and minor procedures. My VA afternoons were filled by cornea, retina, and glaucoma subspecialty clinics, staffed by fellows and attendings. The VA experience exposed me to a wide range of ophthalmic pathology, and built clinical and surgical acumen early in my training. I returned as a second-year resident to oversee the general clinic, and expanded upon my surgical skills by performing weekly cataract surgery. As a third-year resident my VA clinic role was primarily surgical, with clinic days devoted to seeing pre-op and post-op patients. It was a great experience to rotate through the same place at each level of my training and an amazing feeling to gain confidence in my clinical and surgical skills through the years. By my third year, I was very proud to have learned enough to be able to serve as a resource to my junior residents. 

Another memorable experience of my third year was the opportunity to participate in an international surgical mission to the Dominican Republic. I jumped at the chance to observe and contribute to the team dedicated to the surgical treatment of cataracts and glaucoma.This experience was truly rewarding and enlightening, and made me even more appreciative of the luxuries we enjoy and take for granted in our Eye Center, in our clinics, and in our surgery centers. The Dominican patients were friendly and welcoming, and more than happy to help me expand upon my very basic conversational Spanish! 

It was at the start of my third year that I chose to pursue a fellowship in vitreoretinal surgery. I had always known that the Duke ophthalmology residency was respected as a top program, but it was not until I interviewed for outside fellowship programs that I came to understand how nationally well-regarded our program truly is. My letters of recommendation from the world-class faculty members at Duke were always points of interest during my interviews. Seeing our residency program and faculty members through the eyes of those at outside institutions made me feel proud to have received my residency training at Duke.