Is Ophtho an island?

[Primate]

I've had the following discussion about ophthalmology several times now with friends and have not found any satisfactory answers. I'd like to pose the question to the board, so...

Background:
A concern about ophtho is that it is somewhat insular in comparison to other specialties. If true, this could decrease the amount of interaction with other departments, hamper training during residency, make collaborative research efforts more difficult, decrease available hospital funding , etc.

Question(s) about your institutions (or generally):
Is ophtho its own department?
Do other depts play nice with your dept (joint neuro and neuro-ophth conferences, for example)?
Are there any ophthalmologist who've made the jump from ophtho to administrative roles outside the dept (taking this as a measure of insularity)?
Do any of you think that insularity is actually a problem, or, if it exists, is just the way things are and not detrimental to training/practice?

That'll do.

P

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[idoc]

Yes, I think Ophtho is an island...a paradise Island where the beer flows like wine, where people don't stay on your inpatient service for months waiting for nursing home placement, where the smells of feces, blood and emesis are a distant past memory of the halls you once roamed as a medical student. It is an island which patients are happy to visit, and leave with a better quality of life. It is an Island that allows a physician a life outside of medicine. So, in summation, yes, I think Ophtho is an island, with a bridge allowing Ophthos to visit the mainland of general medicine when they deem neccessary.

 

[jonnyboy]

amen to that idoc!

 

[Andrew_Doan]

Originally posted by Primate


Question(s) about your institutions (or generally):
Is ophtho its own department?
Do other depts play nice with your dept (joint neuro and neuro-ophth conferences, for example)?
Are there any ophthalmologist who've made the jump from ophtho to administrative roles outside the dept (taking this as a measure of insularity)?
Do any of you think that insularity is actually a problem, or, if it exists, is just the way things are and not detrimental to training/practice?

That'll do.

P

Is ophtho its own department?
At Iowa, ophtho is its own department. Don't know why we would want it any other way!

Do other depts play nice with your dept (joint neuro and neuro-ophth conferences, for example)?
We do have joint conferences with radiology, neurology, and occasionally medicine. Our department works well with other departments and is well respected.

Are there any ophthalmologist who've made the jump from ophtho to administrative roles outside the dept (taking this as a measure of insularity)?
Dr. Stephen Ryan is a retinal specialist who has bridged this gap:
http://www.usc.edu/hsc/doheny/news/ryan.htm
He is: president of the Doheny Eye Institute, dean of the Keck School of Medicine of USC, named to a joint National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine panel convened to evaluate the organizational structure of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and senior vice president for medical care at USC.

Do any of you think that insularity is actually a problem, or, if it exists, is just the way things are and not detrimental to training/practice?
All specialities are "insular". It's what medicine has become. Even the sub-specialties within internal medicine are some-what insular. We all need to adapt and be as collaborative as much as possible.

 

[Primate]

Hey boss, de plane.... de plane.

Fantasy Island sounds nice, as long as I get to fly the plane too.

Seriously, thanks for the responses, serious and not so much. My impression is that ophtho in general is like most areas in that one can collaborate as much as one wants. Long way away, but I can't wait.

P