Grand rounds are held each Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 8:00 to 8:45 a.m. in the Braley Auditorium.
All residents and staff attend unless operating or engaged in acute medical care. During rounds, residents and fellows develop their public speaking skills by making presentations. Discussion by the faculty and house staff follows each case.
Some services such as retina, glaucoma, cornea, neuro-ophthalmology, and pediatric ophthalmology have "chart rounds". These conferences focus on interesting patients that presented that day. Discussions center on patient care but also cover other areas such as communication, ethics, and systems based care. Retina also has formal conferences, such as Fluorescein conference, and Dr. Ed Stone's molecular ophthalmology rounds.
The cases and discussions presented by Residents and Fellows at Grand Rounds are often further developed and published as case reports and tutorials on EyeRounds.org.
Once a week during the academic year, didactic lectures on ophthalmology are presented. These two-hour lectures are organized to coincide with the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s Basic and Clinical Sciences Course. Lectures cover most aspects of basic and clinical ophthalmology. These sessions often include a journal club covering recent journal articles in that subject area to help develop skills in practice based learning.
Four to six clinical conferences are held during the academic year. Clinics are closed on Friday mornings on these days. Ophthalmologists from throughout Iowa and surrounding area attend and learn from discussions of challenging clinical problems. These meetings feature a visiting professor who presents a lecture based on his/ her research interests. The day is balanced by the presentation clinical cases followed by discussions. This conference has contributed to the excellent rapport between practicing ophthalmologists and the ophthalmology staff at the university.
Each year in June, alumni and other members attend a two- to three-day Iowa Eye Association meeting with invited speakers.
Presentations of research are made annually during the Resident and Fellow Research Conference at the end of the academic year.