Hi. I just stumbled upon this site and was fascinated by the posts. I am in my 3rd year of medical school and am thinking about ophthalmology. Can someone please help me with: 1. How important is research; 2. When should I take the Step 2's; 3. When and where to do electives or away electives in ophthalmology; 4. Who should I get letters from; 5. How competitive is ophthalmology?
Anything is appreciated! 😍
1. Research is not as important as in other competitive fields (e.g. dermatology, radiology), but is required to be considered at top academic programs. For example, MEEI explicitly states that it interviews applicants who are published in peer-reviewed journals, preferably as first author in the field of ophthalmology. However, if you are just looking for a solid middle tier program, any sort of research activity will help. Of course, a lot of it depends on what school you are applying from and your numbers, but this has been my general impression. Overall, research shows initiative, a critical outlook, and follow-through (given that you publish). It will always help make you a more competitive applicant so try to get some under your belt.
2. Step 2 isn't a big deal for ophthalmology. I don't think there is a hard and fast rule. Rarely do the programs ask for you to send them your scores, and even if they do, it's not a requirement but rather an inquiry. A lot of people try to get them out of the way earlier rather than later in order to hit the interview trail without it looming over their heads. The bigger concern is to get your numbers in before regular match so that prelim/transitional year programs can have them in order to rank you. Your performance on CS and CK is much more relevant to them anyway. At latest, take CS by November and CK by December, but like I said it sounds like a lot of people get these out of the way much sooner.
3. There are two types of away rotations. One is to obtain a letter of recommendation either from a program you are interested in or from a big name ophthalmologist, the other is to "audition" at a program that you are strongly interested in. If time allows it, I think a good strategy is to go to two away rotations, one at a reach program where you can hopefully score a strong letter and two at a more safety program maybe close to home where you can make the argument that you are interested in matching there. Look over your medical school's academic calendar, because any letters of recommendation will have to be submitted by the end of August. Another school of thought is to avoid away rotations all together. The thought process is that as medical students we know so little about ophthalmology that we end up making ourselves look bad to big wig attendings whose heads have been in their field for so long. Ophthalmologists often lose touch on how far along we are in our training and so their expectations of you may be skewed. I think this is a fair argument, so it is important for you to figure out how prepared you'll be come the start of fourth year before deciding on away rotations. Will you have time to do an ophthalmology rotation at your home institution beforehand to work on your examination skills? Will you have time to study some basic ophthalmology? Are you willing to make the financial investment of arranging transportation and housing? Away rotations are not a requirement by any means and many from my school have matched at excellent programs without them. It's a high risk, high reward game so you'll have to decide for yourself.
4. In my opinion, you should have one or two letters from an ophthalmologist, and one or two letters from a core clinical rotation. I think the best strategy is to get one from an ophthalmology research mentor, one from a clinical ophthalmologist and one from a strong core clinical rotation (preferably medicine or surgery). Obviously, if you can get a letter from an ophthalmologist who is prominent in the field, it will be better for you. Interviewers will often comment on the letter-writers that they know and it likely plays a big role in the process of inviting applicants to interviews.
5. It's not as competitive as in the "golden era" of ophthalmology, which is now over. Compensation for the field is not what it used to be, so people are going into it now more for how dynamic of a field it is and for the interesting procedures involved. You should definitely choose it only if you love it, and if you love it, you should just go for it. Be strategic about your approach in the next year or so, work hard, and it will pay off.
