How much studying in residency?

[fuzzydoc303]

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Throughout the years of Ophtho residency, how much does the average resident study in a day? What is a good amount to ensure you are learning what you need to in order to effectively hone your skills?

 

[TexasEye19]

Studying for boards and "honing your skills" are on different sides of the universe.

 

[DrZeke]

Throughout the years of Ophtho residency, how much does the average resident study in a day? What is a good amount to ensure you are learning what you need to in order to effectively hone your skills?

I tried to read an hour a day in the morning and on the weekends a bit more, but that won't get you through your BCSC the first year. I think if you read just for understanding and not worry about memorizing it's a bit easier.

 

[fuzzydoc303]

Thanks for your replies everyone! I'm a medical student interested in Ophtho and wanted to get a better idea of what some elements of residency are like

 

[MstaKing10]

Hour a day is a great goal. On weekends I spent about half a day (ie. 4-6hours) reading BCSC plus other review books. We had a smattering of journal articles to review and such throughout the week. Our program did a pretty good job of organizing a reading schedule, morning lectures and study questions that helped a lot as well

 

[Trefoil]

It varied based on our year. I studied the most first year as everything was new. I spent about an hour every morning reading, but we immediately reviewed the material together every morning for about 45 minutes. That requires a lot of early mornings. The more times you go through the BCSC the less effort it is to read, so it was substantially less in the subsequent years. I agree that I spent about 3-6 hours on weekends doing additional studying.

As many have highlighted, studying for patient care is different and generally happens during the day as you encounter new conditions.

 

[martianmonster]

Agree with above. Keep in mind that you learn hardly anything about ophthalmology as a medical student so there will be a lot to learn over the course of first year. Additionally, it is tough to read ophthalmology as a fourth year medical student or even a PGY1/intern because you will not have any baseline knowledge to help you interpret the density that is the BCSC.

 

[Trefoil]

Agree with above. Keep in mind that you learn hardly anything about ophthalmology as a medical student so there will be a lot to learn over the course of first year. Additionally, it is tough to read ophthalmology as a fourth year medical student or even a PGY1/intern because you will not have any baseline knowledge to help you interpret the density that is the BCSC.

That’s very true. I think I focused on learning how to do a good screening and slit lamp exam while giving a decent presentation of my findings. I read about the disease entities, but they didn’t really make as much sense. There was a great book on how to do various exams that I found very useful called Practical Ophthalmology which would be good to read during your third year rotation. OphthoBook is another great resource when you are starting.

 

[Slide]

The BCSC books have lots of important knowledge but are unfortunately very dry and poorly written (due to its committee-based approach). Reading them are important for the OKAPs and boards, but one way to more efficiently increase your study yield is to look up the subject matter online. There are many more useful compendiums (such as eyewiki) that present the information in a dense but efficient manner.

Also, when reading about pathology, don't neglect to look at lots of pictures - an atlas or google/bing image search even. Ophthalmology is similar to dermatology in that we are in a visually-dependent field of medicine, so constant repetition of seeing things help.