I'm a 4th year medical student that rotated at POH/Detroit, Grandview, Oklahoma State University.
Overall, the program I liked best was POH/Detroit due to the balance of surgery and didactics. Surgeries are usually on Wednesdays and Lectures can vary some are in the morning and some are in the afternoon at a coffee shop. They also recently started to due the BCS series as a lecture format with all 3 of the main attendings. I thought it was a great idea cause some are question and answer format, while others are straight lectures. During the session the attendings ask a ton of questions to both the students and the residents. They have a pretty high volume residents clinic and have a glaucoma specialists show up 1 time a month on Thursday mornings I believe. You go to San Antonio for the review course. Attend CORO TV @ MSUCOM. Wet labs are at MSUCOM. Go to Henry Ford, Kresge Eye, Beaumont for didactics. (can't interview here since you need to be an intern) I think they have 2 spots a year. Residents just as laid back as in Tulsa and great to work with.
Grandview: not as much didactics, resident run and they pay attendings to lecture each week or every other week. They have a pretty busy resident clinic and as a student you are there for most of your rotation. The program director will either take a student or a resident for a half day 2 times a week. You usually alternate with the first year resident. That is all the contact you get. They have everything a residents clinic would need since alumni donate equipment each year. They are suppose to get a similation machine this year to help out with surgery. There is adequate volume, however, as a PGY 1 or 2 you set up cases for the senior. Each year they take 1, except every 2 years they'll take 2. Upside, spend time at Univ of Cincinati in the beginning and go to Lancaster course in Maine. Attend CORO TV at MSUCOM. Not much wet labs and pig eyes. Has a lot of call since only program in Dayton at Good Samaritan, Miami Valley (Level 1 trauma), Grandview. Interview was intense, asked me question on ophthalmology, internal medicine protocols, while I was suturing on a suture board. Also made me take one of those Meyer-Briggs personality tests (which I acutally saw on Blogthings on my friends Myspace.com page, which isn't really accurate since its only 30 instead of the 100 questions, so that's kind of misleading to use). Residents not as laid back as Tulsa, but still good to work with.
Oklahoma State Univ @ TRMC, now OSUMC...great for surgical volume. Not much didactics, mostly resident run...starting to set up lectures online. No neuro-ophthalmology rotation for the residents. No big university program affiliation for lectures. You need to drive to Triad Eye Muskogee (80 miles + tolls) each day when there are LASIK and cataract surgery, 2 days a week. Then the other 2 days, your at Triad Eye in Tulsa observing LASIK and cataract surgeries here. There is a residents clinic with adequate volume, but not as busy as the POH and Grandview programs. Also, they residents will see patients at the TRIAD eye surgery center and cataract institute on Mondays...however, the schedule may have changed. The residents and students can also go to Ranch Acres with another attending who has been the first to do a lot of Ophthalmology stuff in both the DO and MD world, even created his own alcon lens and one of the first to use a LASER in the US. There is also Eye Center of Tulsa and TRMC Surgical center available for surgery. As an intern, you'll max out your cataract surgery requirement. You'll be doing surgery alone during your PGY 1, 2, 3 years after the internship and well equiped to handle difficult cases like post capsule ruptures and vitrectomy with the attending observing. You'll see more refractive and anterior chamber surgeries like PRK, RK, Intraocular contact lens implants, etc. It's the best place is all you want is surgery, however, I believe the program is improving didactically now. They also attend CORO TV @ MSUCOM. As student you get to phaco and work on pig eyes as much as you want. I got a ton of experience with the phaco machine, capsularhexis, inserting extra lens, and in general getting comfortable in the OR. I also got to use my experience here to improve my knowledge of surgery and taking certain techniques from the variety of attendings. The one difference why OK has a ton of surgery is Optometrists are allowed to do laser surgeries, so Ophthalmology focus on surgery and get referrels from rural OK and Tulsa Optometrist for cataracts, pterygium, etc. So its more like they are the primary care eye doctors, while Ophth just focus on surgery only. Some of the residents in teh past went to Yale and Wills for glacoma I think. The 2 seniors want to do retina and have scored in the 80-90s in the OKAPs...which is higher than most MD programs since they read a lot on their own. Interview was really laid back and casual. There was talks of having 2 spots this year, but didn't get the extra funding, so as of now just 1 per year. GREAT residents and interns...easy to work with, smart, fun to hang out on weekends with.
I spent a day at Doctors, however, they got to OSU and the Childrens Hospital of Columbus. Interview with 4 attendings, no residents...fairly intense with questions, but fairly honest in what they ask. No medical or ophthalmology questions. Residents seem easy to work with, haven't had much interaction with them since I really didn't spend time here.
So far Tracked/linked are Doctors, Grandview, OSU, Chicago...that's all I applied to this year. Match is in a few weeks and they go through the regular match. Although all the programs are fairly honest and let you know if you are a good vs. bad candidate. I would go to any of the above programs minus the one in Illinois since you usually need to graduate from CCOM to get a spot there. I won't put rankings or anything from my perspective.
Good Luck to everyone. To get an interview at certain places, ITS REQUIRED to rotate. They figure if you take the time to spend with them, they'll take the time to get to know you...so rotate at as many of the link programs. Save all the unlinked ones for intern year. I focused on all the tracked ones that would give me a shot. I got LOR from all the attendings I had and didn't have one until I rotated in Oklahoma with the old program director.
