Residency Exchange Committee

Mission & Duties

It is a continuous policy of the European Board of Ophthalmology to encourage ophthalmologists to share their knowledge within the countries of the European Union in order to achieve the highest standards of training. This has become even more important since 10 new countries joined the EU in 2004.

EBO has established the network of training centres that have received its certification. Exchange of residents among EBO-certified institutions has been taking place since 2001. From that point on both training and teaching ophthalmologists (ie. faculty members) have been offered the possibility of exchange in order to unify teaching practices. It is felt that the welcoming of new countries in the EU presents a new challenge to the EBO since ophthalmic care in these countries may have had different historical and professional background.

It is a common goal of the EBO to unify teaching standards within all EU countries. Therefore, the Residency Exchange Committee will offer the possibility of training and teaching of residents in ophthalmology at EBO-certified institutions. These hosting centres will have to be EBO certified, while this is not essential for the sending centres (although they will need to be academic).

In addition to facilitating this exchange process, the EBO will also encourage teaching centres to both, apply for EBO Certification from the EBO Residency Review Committee and encourage their residents to attend the EBO Diploma Examination. It is expected that, while initially the network of certified teaching centres will see a transfer of knowledge from the existing centres to the new ones, it will soon plateau to offer equal educational standards in ophthalmology throughout certified training centres in Europe.