Hello.

Do the current residents have any tips on books that interns
should read to get prepared for their first year of Ophtho?

Welcome to the forum!

Consider these articles:

http://www.medrounds.org/ophthalmology-pearls/2006/06/what-books-do-i-need-for-residency.html

What books do I need for residency? by Andrew Lam, MD

http://www.medrounds.org/ophthalmology-pearls/2006/06/how-to-survive-your-general-internal.html

How to Survive your General Internal Medicine Ward Months by Ruben N. Sanchez, MD

That link was a great help! Thanks!

I'm not sure if it was listed in the links, but if you can get ahold of the Fundamentals and Principles of Ophthalmology book (book 2) from the Basic Science Course, you can start reading that a month or two before you start your actual residency, and that will give you a little jump.
A couple of weeks before, read Practical Ophthalmology for Beginning Residents (by Wilson). It's a great primer to get you going. I found a copy used on eBay for $7 when I started, and it was more than worth it.

Dave

I'm not sure if it was listed in the links, but if you can get ahold of the Fundamentals and Principles of Ophthalmology book (book 2) from the Basic Science Course, you can start reading that a month or two before you start your actual residency, and that will give you a little jump.
A couple of weeks before, read Practical Ophthalmology for Beginning Residents (by Wilson). It's a great primer to get you going. I found a copy used on eBay for $7 when I started, and it was more than worth it.

Dave


Great advice from above. In addition, try to get your hands on Update on General Medicine (book 1) from the BSC. This is a hard book to get through during your first year of ophthalmology residency, but if you can read a bit of it here and there during your intern year, you will make your life easier. For example, if you have a patient with lupus, read about lupus and all of its ophthalmic manifestations. Towards the end of the year, do the practice questions at the end of the book. If you did okay, you have probably mastered all of the internal medicine you need to know to pass your ophthalmolgy boards.

Towards the end of my intern year, I read through most of BCSC volume 3: Optics - though I didn't fully understand most of it at the time, it made getting through optics much easier for me when I started residency. I am selling the 06-07 edition in perfect condition if anyone's interested.

Great advice from above. In addition, try to get your hands on Update on General Medicine (book 1) from the BSC. This is a hard book to get through during your first year of ophthalmology residency, but if you can read a bit of it here and there during your intern year, you will make your life easier. For example, if you have a patient with lupus, read about lupus and all of its ophthalmic manifestations. Towards the end of the year, do the practice questions at the end of the book. If you did okay, you have probably mastered all of the internal medicine you need to know to pass your ophthalmolgy boards.

That's not a bad idea. That said, keep in mind that the books we've mentioned so far: fundamentals, optics, and general medicine will not help you much in the clinic when you start your pgy2 year. I remember being really annoyed during the first month of pgy2 year b/c our chief resident basically inundated us w/ reading fundamentals, when it didn't help one iota for seeing clinic patients. (I would have rather spent more time reading cornea and retina at first). Also, fundamentals is NOT an easy book to get through. So if you plan on reading it when you're already really busy w/ internship activities, you may end up just doing nothing.

The problem with reading a book that's clinically applicable during internship is that there's a huge learning curve once you start ophtho residency. If you do want to read something that will be helpful in the clinic, I'd recommend retina (just make sure you understand that lots of the treatments in the book are getting a little dated due to the anti-vegf therapy). Cornea or peds may also be good choices.

If you want to read a book that's easier to learn from, you could pick up a copy of Kanski. A new edition just came out. Also, it'll be MUCH easier to actually stick to reading kanski. You could just pick a couple chapters, like neuro-ophth, etc.