Quote:
Originally Posted by EnemaCure
St John's Episcopal Hospital South Shore
This program does not directly take applicants, applicants must apply to the traditional internship year, upon successful completion of that year they may be admitted to the ophthalmology program but must do an extra year of pgy-2 level training in family med, IM or surgery prior to starting ophthalmology. it has be said that in the past 3 interns were accepted and only 2 matriculated into the ophthalmology program, but in the past couple years this competitive practice has not happened. Why they do this? Who knows, rumored that it is so they can get the full 5 years of medicare residency funding. it has also been said that the program has poor financial support and that on top of a relatively low (for new york) salary that residents are expected to pay out of pocket for all their educational, licensure (in multiple states in order to do rotations there), and administrative costs can run 10-20,000 a year.
Didactics- are with the manhattan consortium
Surgical volume- poor, historically resident have gone to other programs to get adequate surgical volume as well as to India to get enough volume to feel competent. Some of these options are becoming limited and stability of the program has often expressed
Pros/what works- a few connections to bigger name New York programs
Cons/deficiencies- lots of travel between far rockaway hospital, hospital in Brooklyn and manhattan daily in new your traffic literally eat away hours of your day, cost of living and poor financial support. Unfounded 2-year pre-residency setup. Poor surgical training.
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My cousin was just the chief resident here last year so I ran this by him (though I had a really good idea as well since I've also had a lot of exposure to this program firsthand). He says that they definitely require you to do two years then three of ophtho but that its handled similarly to their derm program. *NO ONE* has any illusion of getting or not getting optho. When you interview for Family Practice they know you're an ophtho candidate and you interview with the ophtho program. They have their 2 protected spots per year in the FP and TRI programs. You get a phone call right before the match list needs to be locked in and they make sure you are 100% applying for optho and have ranked them high. Its all handshake agreements that as long as you dont screw up (never heard of anyone screwing up) they put you into the ophtho program after the first two years. Everyone knows who the to-be ophtho residents in PGY1 and PGY2 are. Which I shoudl also correct, the first years are totally funded. The ophtho program is 100% funded through all 5 years.
Also idk where you got they are low paid. The residents there (my cousin included) are always saying how even though the hospital is in a crappy neighborhood, the pay is amazing. I believe they start at 50K or 51K as interns, which is huge pay for intern year. I didnt compare that stat to what it says on opportunities though, but my cousin (And my conversations with interns) imply its just over 50K.
The rest of the stuff, including about not covering your costs is all true. The FP program covers everything, and are super generous, but ophtho and surgery leave your costs up to you to handle. I would heavily downplay your concerns about distances you travel. If you go FP-> ophtho you do very little traveling. Surgery-> ophtho does lead to a lot of traveling as the surgery sites are all around. The ophtho hospitals (SJEH, All Saints or whatever its called, NY Eye and Ear) are all super easily accessible, especially if you live in western queens or western brooklyn. Theyre all right along highways that dont get too busy at all. Which is rare for NY, but literally if you're going to pick highways to be on, its the belt and the FDR. But of course all it takes is one car accident to turn a snappy quick commute into a crawl. No way around admitting that.
Overall you're right on target. Just had a few completely incorrect points buried in a mostly correct assessment. Probably due to either miscommunication or confusing SJEH with another program.