The standardized residency training is the essential prerequisite for the training of ophthalmologists in the health system. Based on the emerging problems of standardized residency training in the Department of Ophthalmology in Wuhan Union Hospital, attempts have been made to explore the effectiveness of a comprehensive reform of clinical instruction in areas of content, mode and learning evaluation for residents, as well as incorporating ideological and political elements in the instructional process and faculty training to enhance teaching skills for instructors, which has achieved good results. We hope that the dissemination of such efforts could provoke thoughts on improving the training model for ophthalmological residents and to improve the quality of the ophthalmological training programs in China, and to eventually lead to accumulation of better ophthalmologists in China.