New Retina Fellowship: Retina Group of Florida

[MstaKing10]

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Just saw this, figure I would post for anyone interested.

We are starting a new Vitreoretinal Surgery Fellowship at Retina Group of Florida in July 2026!

It’s a two-year, high-volume program based in Fort Lauderdale/Palm Beach, with hands-on mentoring from 15 fellowship-trained retina surgeons. SF Match listed, AUPO-FCC pending.

Retina Group of Florida-Fellowship-Combined-Deck 6.13.25.pdf

tinyurl.com

 

[eyeeye_captain]

A PE fellowship where you’re on the hook for Saturday postop clinics and a core “plus” is to learn how to bill/code better for the corporate overlords?

Nah bro/sis. Just nah.

 

[MstaKing10]

Got clarification: Saturday clinic only when on call. Other weekends are off.

Several very reputable fellowships around the country are now PE backed. How it impacts training I’m not sure.

 

[eyeeye_captain]

So q2 per them (color me surprised if it turns out to be closer to q1). Yes, ARC, RGW, Cincinnati, Minnesota, etc. are PE backed, but they also had well established programs. This smells of “hey, we can hire another billable body at 25% of our RCA starting rate and the doctors are less likely to leave with at least half the primary call gone.”

I’ve got nothing against the docs, but the setup raises some red flags.

 

[MstaKing10]

Yeah q2wks seems excessive. To be fair my retina fellowship was q2wk call, I don’t wish that on anyone!

 

[Bgladney]

Is that legal?

Been waiting for the "Titanic" to hit the preverbal iceberg. Believe we are close to sounding the alarm and heading to life boats.

 

[MstaKing10]

Legal?

Fellowships do not fall under ACGME governance so duty hours restrictions do not apply. AUPO does not provide guidelines on this to my knowledge.

I’m assuming call for a private practice fellowship will be pretty tame compared to a place where residents, ERs and various hospital systems need to be staffed.

 

[eyeeye_captain]

Legal for sure, also awful for sure. I think back to the q1 plastics fellows from med school through fellowship.

That’s like a 15 doc practice, I’m guessing it’s not super slow. If the Miami market requires them to be on for local hospitals, especially trauma centers, that could be awful, especially without residents.

 

[TheLesPaul]

yes we were on call for our entire first year of plastics fellowship for 4 hospitals. but it was subspecialty call so -- don't you want the cases?? it's only a year.

 

[eyeeye_captain]

yes we were on call for our entire first year of plastics fellowship for 4 hospitals. but it was subspecialty call so -- don't you want the cases?? it's only a year.

Did you feel like call cases (especially ones that could have gone during normal hours the next day) were a big boost in your training?

 

[docdoc2012]

yes we were on call for our entire first year of plastics fellowship for 4 hospitals. but it was subspecialty

Yea you weren't on call to get cases. You were on call to assess the cases your attendings didnt want to come in to assess. If you were the fellow those cases should have gone to you either way.

 

[TheLesPaul]

Did you feel like call cases (especially ones that could have gone during normal hours the next day) were a big boost in your training?

absolutely they were. call was when we could poach cases from ENT/OMFS and do midface, frontal sinus, mandible fractures with our senior fellow and take as long as we wanted without anyone breathing down our necks. or practice some facelift techniques in a really bad dog bite. or just have full autonomy to develop your own style and not worry about time. I feel like I came out of fellowship extraordinarily well prepared.

 

[TheLesPaul]

Yea you weren't on call to get cases. You were on call to assess the cases your attendings didnt want to come in to assess. If you were the fellow those cases should have gone to you either way.

my faculty wouldn't have been responsible for most of those cases anyway, I would still have had to do them after their scheduled cases by myself bc we were consider attendings and could run our own room

 

[docdoc2012]

my faculty wouldn't have been responsible for most of those cases anyway, I would still have had to do them after their scheduled cases by myself bc we were consider attendings and could run our own room

So basically an attending for 1/8 of the price. So wrong and so common

 

[MstaKing10]

So basically an attending for 1/8 of the price. So wrong and so common

I mean this is kind of what fellowship is. What are your expectations? You take as many of the attendings cases as you can, then hunt for more in the residents clinics, then add more from call. The more the better. Because in a year when you’re done it’s all on you as an attending. My fellowship was a beast but I came out super well prepared. So worth the sacrifice.

 

[TheLesPaul]

I mean this is kind of what fellowship is. What are your expectations? You take as many of the attendings cases as you can, then hunt for more in the residents clinics, then add more from call. The more the better. Because in a year when you’re done it’s all on you as an attending. My fellowship was a beast but I came out super well prepared. So worth the sacrifice.

100%. Backup was a phone call away and I was still a trainee. It also wasn't a surprise! I knew exactly what I was getting into and I sucked the marrow out of the fellowship in every way I could.

 

[Slide]

I kinda understand some of the issues with doing cases without an attending; as a fellow I had to an attending formally staff the case and at my current institution we have the same rules. It was a pain to sometimes find an attending to staff at the case but at the same point I understand why a hospital would want it (especially from a malpractice point of view). At a county/true safety net hospital I can see it being a nice thing to be able to function without staff and to add to cases, but early on I was extremely happy I had someone staff all my cases.

 

[docdoc2012]

I mean this is kind of what fellowship is. What are your expectations? You take as many of the attendings cases as you can, then hunt for more in the residents clinics, then add more from call. The more the better. Because in a year when you’re done it’s all on you as an attending. My fellowship was a beast but I came out super well prepared. So worth the sacrifice.

Fellowship is to learn. Not just to mindlessly do as many cases as you can without real guidance. If you are solo and unmonitored in the OR all the time, thats what makes an unrefined surgeon. Guided autonomy with constant refinement is what fellowship should be. My fellowship was also a beast i did close to 1k retina surgeries and most of them complex and tons of peels. But i had guidance if needed on every case - a subtle twist of the wrist, an extra angle of a trochar- it all adds up torefine your technique.

 

[MstaKing10]

Fellowship is to learn. Not just to mindlessly do as many cases as you can without real guidance. If you are solo and unmonitored in the OR all the time, thats what makes an unrefined surgeon. Guided autonomy with constant refinement is what fellowship should be. My fellowship was also a beast i did close to 1k retina surgeries and most of them complex and tons of peels. But i had guidance if needed on every case - a subtle twist of the wrist, an extra angle of a trochar- it all adds up torefine your technique.

I get it and don’t disagree. My first year was great having attendings but I was ready to do my own cases second year. Problem I see is fellows observing more than doing for two years which we can agree is useless. It’s all about balance. Also different people prefer different styles. I’m more inclined to do and learn than I am to observe. To each their own.

 

[TheLesPaul]

Fellowship is to learn. Not just to mindlessly do as many cases as you can without real guidance. If you are solo and unmonitored in the OR all the time, thats what makes an unrefined surgeon. Guided autonomy with constant refinement is what fellowship should be. My fellowship was also a beast i did close to 1k retina surgeries and most of them complex and tons of peels. But i had guidance if needed on every case - a subtle twist of the wrist, an extra angle of a trochar- it all adds up torefine your technique.

of course -- it's all part of a balanced diet. if you are guided all the time -- you never develop your own style. we had senior fellows and faculty who we could call all the time. but you had the option to do it yourself as well. I think that's important. and reminder -- this is just for call cases. during the day you still have your normal cases staffed fully by faculty.

if you don't want autonomy don't go to a big Southern or Western program.

 

[Slide]

of course -- it's all part of a balanced diet. if you are guided all the time -- you never develop your own style. we had senior fellows and faculty who we could call all the time. but you had the option to do it yourself as well. I think that's important. and reminder -- this is just for call cases. during the day you still have your normal cases staffed fully by faculty.

if you don't want autonomy don't go to a big Southern or Western program.

Just curious, was it easy to get OR time to do these cases? My issue as a fellow was finding OR time.

 

[TheLesPaul]

Just curious, was it easy to get OR time to do these cases? My issue as a fellow was finding OR time.

no we were on the add-on list so we would invariably go at midnight or something but like I said...it was just a year

 

[docdoc2012]

of course -- it's all part of a balanced diet. if you are guided all the time -- you never develop your own style. we had senior fellows and faculty who we could call all the time. but you had the option to do it yourself as well. I think that's important. and reminder -- this is just for call cases. during the day you still have your normal cases staffed fully by faculty.

if you don't want autonomy don't go to a big Southern or Western program.

Of course. Hence the term guided autonomy. Available if you need, but noninterference beyond pt safety - thats the goal. Dont know y call cases shouldn't fall into this category as well. I understand why it is the way it is, but practicality doesn't imply correctness