Oregon Health & Science University

Ophthalmology Residency Program Compendium Table of Contents

Oregon Health & Science University
Casey Eye Institute
3375 SW Terwilliger Blvd
Portland, Oregon 97239-4197

http://www.ohsuhealth.com/cei/education/residency.asp

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mjl34 said:

Casey eye in Portland - awesome location; sweet surgical volume (150-200 cataracts) with great autonomy; call is light, people are happy, life is good, faculty are great; overall - another up-and-coming program with an ideal blend of lifestyle, clinical and academic training (and another personal favorite).

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xaelia said:

I have never heard anyone across the country say a single negative thing about Casey; I don't think its name recognition projects as much outside the west coast as UCLA, USC or UCSF, but I wouldn't expect any fellowship doors to be closed to you from that program. They also rank in the top 10 for NEI funding.

Michigan is already well-recognized in national surveys.

UC Davis has excellent training as well, but probably not in the same sentence as the aforementioned west-coast programs.

For quality of life and great training during residency, I think Casey, UCSF, Michigan, and UC Davis are well-balanced and hard-to-beat. Plenty of pathology, surgical volume, and opportunities to practice with some autonomy without suffering unduly.

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Interview Experience:

-Split into two half-day groups. Everyone has lunch together with almost all the faculty and residents showing up on a Saturday! 👍
-Half-day consists of 2 panel interviews and tour of facilities (including skycar) with residents (you get a lot of resident interaction)
-Panel interviews are rather difficult to navigate but the good thing is that during lunch you get the feeling that all the faculty are really very personable people
-Dinner afterwards with residents

Pros:
-Great clinical and surgical volume
-Happy, happy residents! Only places that came close were Wills, Stanford
-Lighter call, all on-site (q5 1st year, backup q5 third year)
-Positive national reputation and some very reputed faculty
-Super nice personable faculty, no sense of formality here, many of the faculty on first-name basis with residents and go out together
-The best facilities-->very well-funded program (beautiful campus!)
-good mix of people going into comprehensive and fellowship
-Solid fellowship match (more on this below)
-Affordable, clean city with excellent public transportation, nice people, and the outdoors right there

Cons:
-Fellowship match? Looking back to 2005 they have had no retina fellowship match, several cornea fellows, a couple of oculoplastics and glaucoma. Per the residents this is because the retina rotation used to be quite rough since you had to take consults (now there is a separate service) and residents tend to veer away from the retina lifestyle
-Almost all the residents are married, it could matter for single applicants but I think that is a matter of self-selection come match time

Overview:

I had heard such good things about Casey that it was already near the top of my list coming into my interview. I would argue that everything that has been said before is true. The residents are extraordinarily happy and it is easy to see why, with great down-to-earth faculty, terrific facilities, a resident-oriented program, and a beautiful city to live in.

Call is light but residents still seem very well-prepared to go out and do comprehensive or go do a fellowship. Research opportunities are readily available as some top people are working at Casey.

In the end it was very difficult for me not to rank Casey in my top 3, and come the end of this week I would be thrilled to get a phone call from Dr. Lauer (who apparently calls every matched applicant personally, another indicator of the type of program this is). I would up dropping it slightly for geographic reasons but otherwise it might have been my #1.

any new reviews on this program?

Could any recent applicants or residents supply insight?