Cornea or glaucoma

[syri]

I am trying to decide between a glaucoma or cornea fellowship. I would like to ask previous and current fellows in these fields about the cataract surgery experience during their fellowship. Are you involved in cataract surgery at all during the fellowship and if so which one, cornea or glaucoma, offers more opportunitis to enhance ones cataract surgery skills. What other pros. and cons. can you tell me about each subspecialty. Your answers will be deeply appreciated. Thank you in advance for your time

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[Wolverine98]

It varies from program to program. Where I did my glaucoma fellowship, I did a ton of cataract surgeries. I did most of the cases on the attending's patients, and I supervised 3rd year residents during their cases (I learned a lot more on this part than from doing my own).
I know there are other fellowships where the fellows don't do any cataracts.

 

[syri]

Thanks for your reply. Do you mind sharing the name of your program and/or any other glaucoma progrmas that offer the opportunity to get more experience with cataract surgery

 

[YeuxEye]

Dr Crandall,

I am a third year resident and I wanted to know what you thought of prgrams were you don't do much surgery..i.e. 10-20 trabs/valves a year..is it worth it to go to those programs even if you get good clinical training?

 

[Wolverine98]

Thanks for your reply. Do you mind sharing the name of your program and/or any other glaucoma progrmas that offer the opportunity to get more experience with cataract surgery

I was at Henry Ford. I know that the fellows at Kresge also get plenty of cataract surgery. At Kellogg they used to get less, but lately they've been operating a lot more.

Fellows at Utah and Oklahoma also get plenty of cataract surgery.

 

[Wolverine98]

I am a third year resident and I wanted to know what you thought of prgrams were you don't do much surgery..i.e. 10-20 trabs/valves a year..is it worth it to go to those programs even if you get good clinical training?

I'm not willing say that it's not worth it, because it depends on what you're interested in. I will say that I personally would not have considered going to a fellowship where there was so little operating. I don't remember what my final numbers were, but I know I did 5 or 6 tubes and 2 or 3 trabs in my first few weeks of fellowship.

 

[BTS]

I can only really speak from a glaucoma perspective...

The cataract experience for glaucoma fellowships really vary from place to place. Some places do a lot of cataracts (apparently Henry Ford is one place, Bascom is another that jumps to mind for the glaucoma fellowship anyway), and others do barely any. The latter scenario actually seems to be more common, depending on the philosophy of the place. I did my fellowship in a place where we barely did any cataracts (probably 10)because my glaucoma attendings barely did any cataracts, except for combined cases. The flip side is that their OR days were all filled with glaucoma cases.

I think that the ideal place to do fellowship really depends on your residency training. If you're comfortable with cataract sx by the time you're done, find a place where you'll do a lot of glaucoma surgery (I'd say 80-100 cases over the course of a year is a reasonable number). If you've done some trabs and tubes in residency, find a place where they're doing a lot of re-op trabs, second tubes, and even some non-penetrating surgeries.

Just my two cents

 

[BTS]

The other thing to remember are the pros and cons of staying at your own program. The upside is that, since your attendings should have a real comfort level with you, you'll get to operate a lot. The downside is that you won't get exposure to a different way of handling similar problems (and there is definitely more than one way to skin a cat in glaucoma management).

 

[syri]

thank you for all your responses. Any cornea fellows would like to share their experiences?
Also can some of you please comment on the advantages and disadvantages of each subspecialty
Thanks again

 

[KingElvis]

Dear SDNites!

Any one can please guide me about good cataract Sx training program (eg.with abundance of cases given as in past track record) please?
I have 10 yrs Ophthal experience 5yrs in Asia and 5 yrs in Europe so far.
Please be honest and give approx numbers as per ur experience and NOT hearsay (if so pls mention that) with no offence- as i am tired of people "saying plenty, a lot,etc" and i shall not disclose any name and respect confidentiality indeed.

Thanks

KE