I'll give you a gist of what you can find out there about testimonies from residency trained docs if you searched:
1. most agree it is rewarding to do in terms of job fulfillment and preparedness.
2. most agree that it doesn't necessarily equate to higher financial gain, but it allowed them to get the job that they wanted.
3. debt interest on certain loans, I believe, is waived if you do a year of residency.
4. any residency would be fine for most employers (depends on the specialties they want you to be trained in), do what you want to do.
I know certain jobs have requirements of being residency-trained, such as the VA or academic settings or very exclusive OMD or OD settings. I know of OMD settings that don't mind and will train you if you want to work with them; I was offered 2 fulltime position at different OMD practices without a residency. I personally wanted to work for a medical foundation that was incredibly competitive and rarely had OD openings, and as a new grad who didn't do a residency, I knew they could have easily taken anyone else who looked better on paper, but I got lucky and secured a fulltime job. Half the ODs here are residency trained, half aren't. We all earn the same because we're unionized. But I honestly believe if someone who was residency trained would have applied, they would've easily outranked me in preference.
there are a lot of popular press articles about this on the internet.
