New Residency Director Named
Corneal clinician-scientist Rachel Wozniak, MD, PhD, was recently named FEI Residency Program director. She takes over from Benjamin Hammond, M., with whom she shared the position as co-director. Hammond will remain in support as Associate Director.
Like Hammond, Wozniak completed her residency at FEI. She remained to perform her cornea fellowship before joining the faculty and has been ascending the academic ladder since, providing patient care, teaching, performing grant-supported research, and patenting drug technology to better treat corneal infections.
She takes the reins at an exciting time. Not only is FEI’s residency program the most diverse it’s ever been, the number of clinical faculty — and the specialties that they’re able teach — has experienced historic growth. The research faculty has also expanded, offering trainees the opportunity to participate in scientific discovery and publish their results.
“I am grateful to Dr. Hammond,” Wozniak said. “He actually started as director when I was a resident here and led the program with unwavering dedication. I hope to add to his contributions by providing top notch clinical and surgical experiences driven by the underlying principles of mutual respect, kindness, and hard work.”
Wozniak happily noted that during recent years, the program has made changes benefiting trainees and their patients. This includes dissolving the separately, resident-run ophthalmology clinic by incorporating residents, and their patients, directly into the faculty practice, where they work side-by-side with faculty.
“Recognizing some of the inherent inequities in how we were delivering care in the resident clinic versus the faculty practice, we’ve taken the important steps to now include all patients in our faculty practice. It improves continuity of care and access to subspecialty care for all. It also enhances interaction between patients, residents, and faculty. In place of the resident clinic, we are launching a new urgent eye care clinic. We hope that this will provide better access to underserved patients who desperately need eye care, but don’t have a regular doctor to turn to.”
With more than 105,000 patient visits to FEI locations each year, more than 5,000 surgeries performed, a growing number of sub-specialty fellowships, and expanding clinical and basic science research opportunities, residency at FEI is reaching the upper echelon of programs.
Stephen Kofron | 9/7/2022
