Fellowship application

It is estimated that over 300,000 Australians have glaucoma, yet 50% are unaware they have it, thinking they have healthy eyes. The main objective for the appointed Fellow is to develop clinical skills across the range of glaucoma management. Such skills include access to a range of diagnostic equipment (OCT, HRT, UBM, SAP and SWAP), laser techniques and surgical exposure to penetrating and non-penetrating drainage surgery, glaucoma drainage devices and trans-scleral cyclophotocoagulation.

Mabs Melville was born into an American philanthropic family in New York. Her mother was a grand-daughter of Ezra Cornell, New York philanthropist, politician and co- founder of the Cornell University. Following this family tradition, generosity for supporting genuine causes became second nature for the rest of her long life living in New York, Hawaii and Australia.

After graduating from the William and Mary University in Williamsburg, Virginia in the late 1930s Mabs married a resident of Honolulu where she lived for the next twenty years. After her husband died, she visited Australia on a holiday and met John Melville who became her second husband and together they settled in Sydney. After John Melville’s death in the mid-1980s, Mabs married her third husband and moved to the North Coast of New South Wales. After his death in 1992 she lived alone supported by two staff members whom she had provided their respective properties nearby.

Mabs was a private person who never sought public recognition in her lifetime. One of her major bequests was to the Sydney Eye Hospital Foundation for perpetual ophthalmic treatment of patients at Sydney Eye Hospital.

Anyone can get uveitis but is it a relatively uncommon condition. In Australia, it affects around 20 people per 100,000 each year. Uveitis is the third leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. The Professorial unit provides clinical services in the areas of inflammatory eye disease, medical retina, neuro-ophthalmology and genetically determined eye disease.

Graham Gordon Lovett AM, 1936-1999, was a former professional tennis player, sports administrator and first President of Sydney Eye Hospital Foundation (1982-99).

Graham was a member of many State and National Boards relating to sport at the top level. He was a born marketer and excelled in all that he did. As first President of the Foundation he opened many doors and set the Foundation up for success.

The successful Fellow will work as part of and contribute to a multi-disciplinary team. During the 12-month Fellowship, they will have the opportunity to complete, under supervision, 100 or more of the common oculoplastic operations, including entropion, ectropion, ptosis, excision/reconstruction for periocular skin and eyelid cancers, and lacrimal drainage system reconstruction. The Fellowship includes outpatient clinic care working under the supervision of Ophthalmologists. In addition, the Fellow will assist the Acute Ophthalmic Service – a clinic that provides follow-up for patients who have been referred from the Eye Emergency department. Participation in this clinic provides fellows with the opportunity to organise and triage their own subspecialty referrals, and to maintain their clinical skills in other ophthalmic subspecialties.

The Sydney Eye Hospital Foundation Medical Retinal Fellowship offers extensive experience in the management of retinal diseases, including diabetic eye disease, vascular eye diseases, age-related macular degeneration and inherited retinal dystrophies. The clinical sessions are undertaken in clinics organised by the Medical Retinal and Uveitis Service. The proposed training will allow the Fellow to acquire a level of professional expertise and clinical research activities in Medical Retina and Uveitis.

This Fellowship will provide training in the clinical assessment, investigation and management of complex neuro-ophthalmic patients including dedicated time in strabismus clinics. Fellows would also be exposed to the clinical role of visual electrophysiology, which provides functional assessment of the visual pathway to correlate with structural changes.

Applicants need to be a fully qualified ophthalmologist in their country.

Applicants also need to provide certified copies of the following:

Demonstration of English language proficiency in accordance with the guidelines established by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) https://www.ahpra.gov.au/Registration/Registration-Standards/English-language-skills.aspx 

OR

Adequate evidence of exemption from the English test requirement due to secondary/high school and/or medical education was undertaken in English in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, USA or the UK.

• Undergraduate Medical Degree
• Experience in postgraduate teaching to Registrars and Residents

NOTE: Applications can be adversely impacted by the lack of required information provided with the application. Prior to completing the application form, applicants are strongly encouraged to:

• Assess their eligibility carefully. It is strongly advised that candidates complete an internship or comparable in the country of graduation before you apply for registration in Australia.
• Applicants are required to provide details of successful completion of a medical internship or comparable.
• Ensure all relevant documents will be certified correctly in accordance with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA). A guide to certifying documents is available on the AHPRA website.

You will be required to provide certified copies of original documents in support of an application for registration, endorsement or for other purposes required by the National Law. 
A certified copy of an original document is a copy that has been verified as being a true copy of an original document. This is done by a person who is authorised to certify copies of original documents.
Please refer to the AHPRA website for instructions on certifying documents as well as a list of authorised officers who can certify your documents inside (usually a Justice of the Peace) and outside (usually a Notary Public) of Australia. Please be advised that per AHPRA’s current policy, if you arrive in Australia before your medical registration is finalised, you will need to re-certify your documents in Australia and upload them to the AHPRA portal.

If you are successful in being awarded a Fellowship at Sydney Eye Hospital, the hospital will sponsor your application for the training visa subclass 407. Once this has been approved, Sydney Eye Hospital will provide you with a nomination letter which will allow you to apply for a training visa (407). To avoid unnecessary delays, please refer to www.homeaffairs.gov.au and familiarise yourself with the requirements for your visa application.

The Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) partners with the Australian Medical Council (AMC) to primary source verify the medical credentials of International Medical Graduates (IMGs) applying for registration to practice medicine in Australia. 
For successful Fellows, this is a very important process that can take up to 8 weeks to finalise. Therefore, it is imperative to initiate this verification as soon as possible. Please familiarise yourself with the process on the ECFMG website. 
Before Sydney Eye Hospital can proceed with lodging a specialist assessment with the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists (RANZCO), successful Fellows must have their qualifications (primary and specialist) verified by the Electronic Portfolio of International Credentials (EPIC) services who will contact the overseas educational institutions for this verification.

A certificate of good standing (COGS) is a document that confirms a doctor's registration status and character. It proves that a doctor is compying, or in "good standing", with the country they practice in (in this case, Australia).
Successful Fellows are required to send a COGS directly to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) by the respective registraton authority, i.e. overseas medical council. Then, that registration authority needs to email the COGS to COGS@ahpra.gov.au. Please be mindful that COGS are only valid for 3 months and must be valid when the Board makes a decision on a registration application. 

A Prior to applying for medical registration in Australia, successful Sydney Eye Hospital Fellows who are international medical graduates are required to apply for an international criminal history check (ICHC). Please read the imporant information for international criminal history check applicants before applying for an ICHC. You can only apply for an ICHC from an approved Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) supplier such as AIS International or Fit2Work. 

The Fellowships are Honorary Medical Officer appointments of Sydney Eye Hospital, with a stipend offered by the Foundation.

The stipend is $55,000 per annum (taxable), plus an allowance of $1,000 is offered per Fellowship to cover certain registration costs that are imposed by Immigration, AHPRA and RANZCO. These amounts are subject to change. 

No, at this time Sydney Eye Hospital Foundation does not have an Observership Program.