Solid Middle Tier Ophtho Programs?

[golfman]

I did a search and didn't see a great thread on this. This one was extremely helpful, though, and had much of what I was looking for. http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=470269

Any additional input on what some of the solid middle-tier programs are? I feel like we all know what the top 1-20 schools or so are. After that, I just don't know where to rank schools. I've looked at US News rankings (also on that link), which I don't find very helpful. Anybody else have any great sources for like the top 50 schools?

Some schools I am curious about are Ohio State, University of Virginia, University of Tennessee, U. of Kentucky, West Virginia, Colorado, Indiana, U. Arizona, U. Alabama, U. Cincinatti, Vanderbilt, CPMC, etc...

If anybody knows some diamond in the rough programs, as well, that would be appreciated.

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[ArtfulDodger]

CPMC and Indiana stand out on your list as being excellent programs. I interviewed at Indiana recently and was very impressed. Their program is also held in very high esteem by the faculty at my home program. I have also heard many good things about CPMC from a number of people who interviewed there and ranked the program highly. I don't have much familiarity with the other programs you mentioned, but those two are very solid.

 

[TheEyeCutter]

I know UTenn and Vanderbilt are strong programs

 

[taehong81]

In my opinion all the programs you mentioned fits the category of solid mid tier programs.

I am a resident here in Indiana so if you have any specific questions just pm me.

 

[ILikeEyeballs]

Agree with above. I would add UAB to the list. It might be one of the best programs in the south for clinical training. It's probably not as great if you are interested in research though.

 

[junkemail86]

Thought I'd list some of the mid-tier programs I liked on the interview trail. These are mainly big cities, so they are less relevant to the original poster but might help other applicants. In no particular order:

Northwestern: Nice facilities in a fantastic area of Chicago. Surgical volume seemed low but adequate, they stressed the importance of simulators during the interview day. New chair Dr. Volpe is big on resident education. Faculty seemed nice, but few are big names in the field.

Rush: Nice facilities. Interesting faculty dynamic (mostly part-time, essentially volunteer attendings). Residents basically choose what attendings they operate with, which influences the attendings to treat the residents well. Lose most of the trauma to UIC. Small program (not necessarily a bad thing).

Loyola (don't really know what tier to put this in): Very strong surgical and clinical training. Chairman putting a new emphasis on research, but still in development. No fellowships (good for resident OR time, bad for fellowship placement). Great training if you want to be a comprehensive ophthalmologist.

Boston University: High cataract numbers (~220), busy clinics. Brand new facilities. Well-trained faculty. Weaker on teaching and research. Recently gained then lost an ASOPRS plastics fellowship.

Stanford: Some of the nicest facilities I've seen. Great location. Stanford name, although reputation is relatively weak in the ophthalmology world. Small faculty with a private practice feel, perhaps a bit weak in some subspecialties (strong retina though).

Cornell: 5 star hotel clinic. Young energetic faculty. Dr. D'Amico brought a strong retina presence, and a bunch of MEEI fellows with him. Residents seemed happy. Good fellowship match. Like other NYC programs, fairly weak surgical volume.

NYU: Decent program in a popular city. Facilities were OK. Didn't get to know the residents at all during the interview day. Typical NYC surgical volume. Decent fellowship matches.

Columbia: Potentially more "academic" than NYU or Cornell. Old facilities. In chairman transition. Good fellowship match.

Cleveland Clinic: Fantastic eye hospital, but a good residency. Seems like you get less autonomy at Cole, more exposure at offsite. Up and coming program. New chair concentrating on residency. Very wealthy hospital, money available for research projects. A few big wigs.

Yale: Good residency. Department not discussed much. Small faculty, glaucoma heavy. Moderate surgical volume. Decent fellowship match.

 

[mydodger]

I feel like we all know what the top 1-20 schools or so are. After that, I just don't know where to rank schools.

I am not trolling when I ask this: how does one know what those top 1-20 schools are? And by top do we mean "top 20 hardest to match into" or "best clinical training and least amount of resident scutwork" or "sees the most surgical cases in residency" or what? Seriously considering ophtho here and as a 3rd year no one has told me what these top programs are. The qualities of my "top program" would be seeing a lot of surgical cases and having the least possible amount of bull-crap-not-a-useful-learning-experience work to do as a resident.

 

[golfman]

I am not trolling when I ask this: how does one know what those top 1-20 schools are? And by top do we mean "top 20 hardest to match into" or "best clinical training and least amount of resident scutwork" or "sees the most surgical cases in residency" or what? Seriously considering ophtho here and as a 3rd year no one has told me what these top programs are. The qualities of my "top program" would be seeing a lot of surgical cases and having the least possible amount of bull-crap-not-a-useful-learning-experience work to do as a resident.

Using Ophthalmology Times rankings, US News rankings, and just what residents/attendings say gives me a pretty good idea of what the top 20 are, I think.

 

[junkemail86]

The top 10-12 or so programs are somewhat agreed upon. Ophthalmology Times is sketchy, but one of the only lists available and basically hits all of the most prestigious residency programs (not necessarily the best training programs):
http://digital.healthcaregroup.advanstar.com/nxtbooks/advanstar/ot_20101001/
Top 10 are generally (in a rough but not exact order): Bascom, Wilmer, Wills, UCLA, Iowa, Doheny, Duke, MEEI, UMich, WashU. People argue endlessly over the order. Emory, UCSF, UPenn, or NYEEI sometimes also make the list.

We had a thread with some opinions on programs 10-20 last year. It's just personal opinions, so use it as a starting point but not your rank list.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=786930

US News ranked 18 top eye hospitals this year. You can also look at the "reputation with specialists" column which seems to more or less determine their list. UIC is the only hospital with a "significant" reputation listed that I saw that was not numerically ranked.

 

[GuitarHero1]

I would throw in UT Southwestern and Wisconsin to solid mid tier programs.

 

[niveknat]

I would throw in UT Southwestern and Wisconsin to solid mid tier programs.

Would also add UCSD to the list here. Underrated program, but great surgical volume, clinically rigorous and diverse, research opportunities, new bigwig glaucoma chairman, and solid fellowship match. You can do anything you want coming out of here and be comfortable, be it private (comprehensive), academics, or fellowship.

 

[LightBox]

One trend that I've noticed is that the Southern programs (also Southern Cali) are usually the busiest because you have the largest # of indigent patients that you can operate on. I think the worst (surgery volume-wise) programs are those without any VA exposure and those that feel "too cushy."

 

[mydodger]

Where can I go to get more information on surgical volumes of various residency programs? I've looked on the FREIDA website and can't find it there, and looked through some individual program websites and can't find it on those either. I found a few "average work schedules" but no information on surgical case load.

 

[MR1]

Where can I go to get more information on surgical volumes of various residency programs? I've looked on the FREIDA website and can't find it there, and looked through some individual program websites and can't find it on those either. I found a few "average work schedules" but no information on surgical case load.

You won't find this info anywhere except maybe here scattered. Although the ACGME knows every programs numbers I have never heard of this info getting leaked.

 

[gsmurf]

I am a resident at the Univ of Cincinnati and I would say we have a very good program as well, but I didn't know it until I got here.

We get reasonably decent cataract numbers (last year range was 130-180) and excellent lectures (Robert Osher gives all of them), lots of hands on retina, which is apparently rare (as a 2nd year I did 10 core vitrectomies, 2 scleral buckles, a ton of lasers and over 100 intravitreal injections), we also have good strabismus (most people did like 25-30 primary cases) because we have a big children's hospital. Our glaucoma tube numbers are good but we don't do any trabs because our main glaucoma guy doesn't think they are reliable. Lots of glaucoma lasers. In terms of corneal surgery, we don't do a whole lot of PKs but we do some, and residents don't do anything on DSEK or LASIK. We also get a lot of ocular oncology because of Dr. Augsburger and he believes in very hands on learning in the operating room.

Our Plastics is really good also (two well known attendings Jeff Nerad, Dwight Kulwin and one new one who is really good Ginger Rattan).

We have enough trauma to easily meet the globe numbers, but not so much that every call night is miserable. That being said, you get very good at suturing lid lacs.

Primary Call is home call and it is shared by 1st and 2nd years (1 in 8 but the residents make the schedule so it is very flexible), Chief call is 1 in 4 but is pretty relaxed.

We also have the Eyesi surgical simulator with cataract and retina modules, and a human eye wetlab.

When looking at residency programs, it is pretty important in my opinion that there is an indigent (county) clinic and a VA. The VA will supply you with lots of Glaucoma, AMD and Cataracts, and the indigent patients give you most of everything else (especially diabetes and trauma). Even if your program is very good about letting residents do stuff in the private clinics, it is pretty rare to get the sort of disasters that come into indigent clinics because private patients tend to take care of themselves and be seen for problems early rather than wait for their eye to be 20/400 before being seen.

Most importantly, you want a program that supports its residents. Dr. Augsburger (Chairman) and Dr. Golnik (Program Director and Vice Chairman) go way out of their way to help out residents. They pay for stuff out of their pockets, give amazing opportunities to people and listen when the residents want something changed. Dr. Augsburger takes us all out for happy hour once per month as an official department function so we can tell him how things are going and if anything needs to change.

If you have any questions, send me a message, as you can tell I think very highly of my residency program.