California Pacific Medical Center

[Andrew_Doan]

Ophthalmology Residency Program Compendium Table of Contents

California Pacific Medical Center
Department of Ophthalmology
2340 Clay Street, 5th Floor
San Francisco, California 94115

http://www.cpmc.org/

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[CastroViejo]

excellent training, very happy residents, chair/PD (Dr. Day) appears to be supremely powerful in the ophtho world. She has had tons of positions in the AAO including being in charge so she's got connections. The residents get very good clinical/surgical volume, and match very well for fellowships. And San Francisco is of course awesome.

However, the most unique thing about this program is the 'staggered start.' Each of the 3 residents per year starts 4 months apart, so 2 out of the 3 will be out of cycle, meaning you will either have 4-8 months off at the beginning or end if you plan to do a fellowship. Most of the residents seem to think it's awesome and use that time to do research and/or travel. If you do research at CPMC during that time, they will start paying you at the PGY-1 level. If you are waiting for a fellowship afterwards, you can start working locum or moonlighting. They also have a 3 month elective I think which most use for international, subspecialty, or more research. The ones who are interested end up doing a ton of research. One of the seniors this year had like 20-30 pubs already or something crazy like that.

Overall, super high quality training, super happy residents, awesome city, time to do lots of research, great fellowships, BUT you have to decide if the staggered start is a positive or a negative for you.

One caveat: it seems that most who match there really do want to take that time off, so it's not everyone who wants that first spot (the 3 residents basically decide amongst themselves the order). For example, 2 years ago, all 3 wanted the LAST spot, so it was a coin toss. Last year 1 wanted to go last, and 2 wanted to go first, so coin toss between those two. Point is that if you match there and don't like the staggered start, maybe you could just take the risk that the other residents like it more than you...

 

[ILikeEyeballs]

I successfully matched this past year and was just thinking about how a year ago at this time, I felt completely lost when it came to figuring out which programs to apply to, here is the review I wrote last year for myself after I interviewed at CPMC. It was one of my favorites and not a lot of people know much about it so I figured I would share my experience.

The most unique thing about CPMC is the staggered start. One resident starts 7/1, the next 11/1, and the next 3/1. The residents I talked to really liked this setup. The program will pay you a PGY-2 salary to do research or even to go internationally and do missions work as long as you associate it with a research project. If you start on 11/1 or 3/1, you will also have either 8 months or 4 months off at the end which can make the timing awkward if you want to do a fellowship. The schedule is organized into 4 month blocks. You start out with lots of supervision, working mostly in private practice settings with faculty, then get lots of autonomy 2nd year at Highlands, then come back and refine your skills as a 3rd year. Everyone gets to be chief resident at the end of 3rd year. The residents really like the setup and it seemed like a great format to me. This was one of the friendliest, most approachable, and most impressive faculty I saw. They have a huge number of people in each subspecialty and lots of connections. Surgical numbers are above average including primary retina. During 3rd year, you get 4 months for elective, 2 of which can be spent abroad. Almost every resident goes abroad. The other 2 months are call free and are supposed to be really easy if you want them to be.

These were some of the happiest residents, faculty, and staff that I have seen. Everybody loved San Francisco and was very happy to be there. The environment was very positive, relaxed, and fun, but the residents and faculty also seemed to be very deep people with a lot of character. I really liked the faculty I interviewed with, especially the chair.

Overall, a great program in a fun city. The only negative for me would be the staggered start, but this might be a positive for some people.

 

[ILikeEyeballs]

Also, why aren't more people posting reviews of programs they interviewed at last year? I would love to post more reviews to help this year's batch of applicants out, but don't want to risk identifying myself.

 

[BlankSlate]

I have some experience here. The program is essentially divided into three parts: Lions Eye Clinic in SF, Highland Hospital Eye Clinic in Oakland, and some assorted private practice for subspecialty care.

Pros:
-San Francisco and Oakland are nice places to live

Cons:
-Little full time staff. Residents mostly learn from upper level residents. Most faculty are community, volunteer faculty.
-Not particularly busy. There are days when people show up at 9, other days people leave by 4. Not particularly busy in terms of surgery either. Some times a few cases a day at most. Some people like a chill residency, but come on, we're here to learn.
-long commute time to Highland hospital
-staggered start is a bit awkward in my opinion as it puts people off of fellowship schedule, and there is not much of a class feel as everyone is a few month apart.

In all, not a particularly strong program but location is nice.

 

[.hematoma.]

I have some experience here. The program is essentially divided into three parts: Lions Eye Clinic in SF, Highland Hospital Eye Clinic in Oakland, and some assorted private practice for subspecialty care.

Pros:
-San Francisco and Oakland are nice places to live

Cons:
-Little full time staff. Residents mostly learn from upper level residents. Most faculty are community, volunteer faculty.
-Not particularly busy. There are days when people show up at 9, other days people leave by 4. Not particularly busy in terms of surgery either. Some times a few cases a day at most. Some people like a chill residency, but come on, we're here to learn.
-long commute time to Highland hospital
-staggered start is a bit awkward in my opinion as it puts people off of fellowship schedule, and there is not much of a class feel as everyone is a few month apart.

In all, not a particularly strong program but location is nice.

Do you have any knowledge about the step 1 scores of accepted students to the program? I've heard similar comments to yours from others and am curious if that is reflected in avg step scores compared to national numbers

 

[ophtho455]

Hey everybody, CPMC resident here. I was caught by surprise by these last few comments left on the forum about our program and would like to provide my perspective from within the program.

I love our program and could not be happier with the training I am receiving. I was very surprised that someone thought our program was not busy - we cover 4 sites including a very busy trauma center (Highland hospital), and we do not have many fellows (only retina and oculoplastics) so the residents basically take care of this entire population. We actually take primary care of patients from a very large area because patients get sent to us from all over CA and Nevada through the Lion's foundation. Our surgical numbers can be found on our website and speak for themselves. Our resident and attending clinics are generally very busy.

Our faculty is one of the gems of our program, and throughout residency we work extensively with them. It is true that during your first intro rotation you spend a good deal of your time with the chief resident but in my opinion that was more than adequate - you are just starting out and they are in a perfect position to mentor you. During my intro rotation I also spent plenty of one-on-one time with various faculty members and of course all of my surgeries were precepted by an attending. In fact, my attending came to the wetlab with me prior to my first surgery to help me practice for my big day. After your intro rotation you go on to your subspecialty rotations where you only work with faculty one-on-one. You then go on to Highland and Kaiser where the resident experience is fabulous.

The commute to Highland is about a 25 min drive if you live in SF. I don't see this as a big issue, you just need a car (and all bridge tolls are paid by the program).

To answer your Step 1 score question - it varies but overall I can tell you that the applicants that are invited for an interview are very competitive. My impression of my co-residents and the alumns is that they are inspirational human beings and superb doctors. I could write much more about our wonderful program but definitely wanted to address the unwarranted comments previously written on the forum.

If you have any other questions you can go to our website or PM me.

 

[Eye-eye]

Are they still doing the staggered start in the next cycle of applications? I don't see anything about it on their website, and I think I'm a little confused as to the implications of the staggered start and what the timeline would look like for the average resident who, for example, is looking to do a fellowship and would thus need to consider the timeline for that in their plans. Thanks!