It depends what you are looking for. If you are looking for a place with high autonomy and good clinical training, it's a good option. If you are looking for an academic center with research opportunities, then not.
I had kept few notes when I interviewed there
Pros:
- high autonomy, lots of pathology. It's in a community hospital, so you are the patients primary eye doctor. You will see a lot of advanced diabetic cases and uncontrolled glaucoma for example. Many of the faculty have appointments at other places so you will still be able to interact and learn from them while still maintaining your autonomy in clinic (i.e. not simply shadowing them in clinic)
- NYC (40 mn from the city)
- good retina exposure. One retina fellow who was also a graduate from the program said that she had 40 vitrectomies as a primary surgeon (while a resident).
- Intramural Ocular Pathology course - not sure if it's still offered.
- Call system 1 every 4 days and 1 weekend a month.
- Good fellowship placement (50% go into fellowships) including Plastics (MEEI), Retina (Columbia), Duke (Pediatrics).
Cons:
- Not a big name - Their academic affiliation was with Stony Brook and Columbia. Not sure if it's still the case.
- You will spend 3 months in NYP-Columbia (Peds) and 12 days in Stony Brook (Neuro-ophtho)
- There is not a strong didactic course. Residents attend a 6-8 weeks course in Maine I think
- Not a lot of plastics cases
- Cataract volume low 100s. Good if you compare with other NYC programs (with the exception of NYEE)
Summary:
Good services Cornea and Retina. You will interact with faculty well known in their field but still maintain a high level of autonomy.
Not a lot of structured didactics
The interview day could have been organized better. The department has a decent facility.
hope it helps
