Opthomology as Surgical Specialty

[CutIt]

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Hi guys, this is my first post. I'm a third year student who is considering entering an opthomology residency; two pluses compared to other subspecialty programs is the relatively short residency and the greater time off. However, I am interested in the surgical aspect much more than medical. So my question is, what opthomologic subspecialties are highly surgery-intensive, and which areas of eye surgery are growing? Furthermore, what are the cutting edge (pardon the pun 🙂) areas of eye surgery? thanks

 

[JasonDO]

First let me preface this by saying that I am neither a resident or practicing ophthalmologist. Instead, I am a 4th year medical student that has done several ophtho rotations.

In my humble opinion, ophthalmology is one of the surgical specialties that allows you to tailor your eventual practice to suit your own needs. It has been my observtion that certain surgeons who enjoy surgery simply have a higher surgical volume than those who like a mix of surgery and clinic time.

It seems that fellowship trained surgeons in retina-vitreous and occuloplastics have a higher surgical volume than the general ophthalmologist. Although, I've been told that there are some very high volume refractive surgeons as well. Other sub-specialties of ophthalmology that you may want to look into further are glaucoma, neuro-ophthalmology, and pediatric ophthalmology.

I think the field of ophthalmology in general is technologically based. As to what are the latest advancements in the field? I don't think I am qualified or informed enough to answer that question. I'll leave that up to OphthMuDPhuD or anybody else who might give you the most accurate and up to date information.

I feel that ophthalmology is a great surgical specialty. It allows the surgeon to practice what he/she loves and have time to enjoy life as well.

Jason Park MS-IV
NSU-COM

 

[Andrew_Doan]

I agree with Jason Parks.

You can form your practice any way you want as an ophthalmologist. As a general ophthalmologist, you can do virtually any surgical procedure you want short of micro-retinal surgery and extensive oculoplastic work. There are numerous surgical interventions available to you in caring for your patients; thus, if you're comfortable with the surgical procedures, then there is the option of making your practice into a high surgical practice instead of referring your patients to other physicians.

If you want sub-speciality training that will mainly focus on surgical interventions, then I recommend either oculoplastics or surgical retina. Even glaucoma and peds will have high surgical volumes.

I suggest you do rotations in ophthalmology and see for yourself the surgeries performed by ophthalmologists.