My in-office procedures, which includes needles - never unless they have something from their PCP, like with folks that get something for anxiety with flying. Everyone gets topical anesthesia and does great. For OR surgery, they get a little happy juice from anesthesia, some local, and 98% of my patients are awake enough to have a conversation with me if they want. Some docs hate the chats, but I’m fine with it if it makes patients more comfortable, and sometimes you learn some pretty cool stuff.
1-1.5 days in the OR, average 5-6 cases but as many as 10 or so. The rest is clinic. Clinic days are usually 8:30-4:30, averaging somewhere around 50-60 patients. 1-1.5 hour break at lunch.
Pretty easy if you have a home program - send an email to their program coordinator and/or program director. See if there’s some time to shadow. If you like it, ask to help with research. As a field, most of us are pretty approachable and like to teach, not too hard to get a foot in the door.
C’mon, I know it’s an AMA, but that’s like asking a lady her age. I know my numbers, and frankly I underbill. I’ll leave it at triple digits, but there is also overhead and taxes, so you don’t take that home.
Always betadine, corneal toxicity with chlorhexidine. Spec if at all possible, fine without if they can’t tolerate one and are able to manage without blinking. 32 or 33g unless our stock ran out, then 30g
Its a relatively small subspecialty in a specialty that most med schools know almost nothing about.
Hit the nail on the head. So few schools give you any real exposure to ophthalmology, much less retina. We’re more or less a hidden group of doctors.
Yes. DOs absolutely have a chance to get into the field, but considering I had a home program, I had a big leg up in terms of research opportunities and getting LORs. I do think programs are becoming more DO friendly anecdotally, but I’ve been out of the ballgame for a while.
On that note, how much of a leg up is attending a med school with a super solid home program (Michigan)? I have a choice I like a little bit more (should I choose to pursue something outside of Ophtho), but UMich seems to have an abundance of Ophtho-related opportunities.
Good letters are gold, and Kellogg (Michigan) has an incredible program with great folks. Plus all their research. You’d have all the resources, plus if you want to do something else, they’re top notch.
I'm an ophtho resident and I was part of the interview committee; my program (unfortunately) selected out all DO applicants. Ophtho is super competitive and I think it's a very uphill battle. You just have to work much harder if you're a DO applying but not impossible!
Thanks, I take any compliment I can get!
Similar experience in residency. I’m too long out of the game to know, but did the merger make things even worse for DO students in regards to residencies? Not sure how many traditional ones closed their doors.
I’d say there isn’t much for me for us in general, but you’re talking to a sub specialist. If I had to do mostly cataracts, dry eye, etc., it wouldn’t fly for me because my interests are elsewhere. The comprehensive folks usually get to have a great lifestyle with patients giving them high fives for a job well done.
U-M’s home ophtho program would give you good research opportunities and LOR’s. And most of their students match somewhere. However, they rarely take any of their own medical students into their residency program. So there’s no “homer” advantage like Wayne State, which typically matches 2 or 3 of their own students every year into their Ophtho program.
Long way to go. Let’s start with 2 elephants in the room - getting into med school, and still wanting to do ophtho by Match time. The first is obviously crucial, the second is a roll of the dice. MANY people change their minds on specialties. I thought I was going to do 2 other specialties before I chose ophtho.
$1 million? Where is the data on this? bc it seems hard to find
If you browse around the Ophthalmology board here you will see that it is not the uncommon for private practice Retina folks to hit 7 figures. It is a pretty well known fact in the industry.
There really isn’t data other than word of mouth. Salary surveys are notoriously all over the map due to response bias. It seems like MGMA is the most trusted one, and $1M would put you a decent bit above the 95th percentile there.
