Patient volume during ophthalmology training

[mdneale]

At my program we are talking about how many patients a resident should be able to see. Please respond to the poll with the AVERAGE number of patients you see in a full clinic day? Comments are welcome, of course; here are some thoughts:

• How many days a week do you have clinic?
• Do you have a resident run clinic?
• What is your patient population like?
• Do you have many patients who require the services of an interpreter?
• How many exam rooms are available to you?
• Do you have any technical support?

Thanks in advance for your responses and thoughts!

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[odieoh]

Of course the answer is going to vary based on what rotation you are on--neuroophth will be much much lower than retina or general clinic so it would vary month by month.

 

[mdneale]

Of course the answer is going to ... vary month by month.

Good point--and every program is going to be different, making this data harder to interpret. Thus, lets restrict the responses to patients that you examine and make a decision on management..

If you are flying through a high volume of pre-worked up patients (seeing follow-ups in advance of a retina attending with heavy tech support, for example, that could skew the results toward the high side. Alternatively, if you are spending an hour examining new patients for the neuro-ophthalmologist you may skew it the other direction. In the end it should balance out.

What I'd like to determine is HOW PRODUCTIVE ophthalmology residents across the country are; this voluntary poll will certainly be flawed (reporting bias, selection bias, multiple confounding factors), but I'm interested in your responses anyway.

To give you an idea of what our experience is like:

We spend our first and third years in our resident run clinic. All the rotations are contained in the second year (during which time we see patients SCHEDULED for the attending). However, our second years do have a clinic day once a week with their own schedule. They see 15-20 patients, of which 2-3 may be worked up by a tech.

 

[Visionary]

I just went low on the volume, to account for changes during the course of residency and during rotations (as mentioned by odieoh). A gross estimate, at best.

 

[MR1]

With good tech support, our resident run clinic at the VA, as PGY 4. I saw on average about 30 per day.

In clinics that had to have everyone staffed, marginal tech support, maybe 10 per day.

 

[mdneale]

Agreed. At our VA site, we can see upwards of 40 patients due to the solid tech support and multiple lanes. However, at our university site, with one room and no tech...20 patients is a BUSY day.