Prelim Surgery

[sublingual]

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By doing prelim surgery is one at a disadvantage compared to doing a transitional yr or prelim medicine? In other words, will doing a prel surgery year make it more difficult to do as well in ophtho residency, and in future practice, compared to the other choices? I agree that it would be more difficult, but this may be some people's only option of being able to remain in their hometown (especially in popular large cities). I have heard by some residents that u forget the entire internship year anyway and that it does not really help- is this true? Intuitively it seems that transitional is the best bet since ophthal is a combination of medicine and surgery.

Please specify if you are a current ophtho resident when answering this question, or if you have heard from current residents that have had experiences with this.

 

[jackflash]

Yikes, prelim surgery! Sounds like overkill, especially since you'll be spending most of your time running scut on the floors...and not in the OR.

 

[sublingual]

Thanks, but I am not worried about the workload or the scut. I am wondering if there would be a diisadvantage to not getting enough experience in medicine, although some residents say that you forget it all during opthal residency due to disuse atrophy. Besides, there are some that do let interns operate significantly and thus learn better manual dexterity.

 

[GlaucomaMD]

I would definitely recommend prelim IM or Transitional over prelim Surgery.

Medicine knowledge you will pick up during the intern year is much more applicable to ophthalmology, especially with respect to endocrinology (DM & thyroid disease). Neurology rotation would also be beneficial.

You may also be called to admit ophth patients rarely - medicine knowledge helps more again here.

I personally felt the Transitional Year was best because it also afforded me with more flexibility with regard to electives, etc.

Best Wishes on your upcoming match!

 

[sublingual]

Thanks for the input. So I guess you feel that the knowledge you gain in internship year does remain with you and help you throughout ophthal residency. I.e. it is not lost due to disuse atrophy. I wonder if you actually gain enough experience with DM, thyroid dz, neurology, etc... just by studying for the step 3 and doing admissions and pt care in prelim surgery. In this case, it may help to get gross motor skills down in prelim surgery before advancing to fine skills during residency?

 

[GlaucomaMD]

Gross surgical skills of general surgery does not help "prepare" you for microsurgical skills required in ophthalmology.

Just speaking from my personal experience.

Others may disagree...

 

[ckyuen]

I agree /c glaucoma md. The microsurgical skills in ophthalmology will not be acquired in a surgery internship or residency. I did a month of plastics, hand, call and even that did not help for the fine surgical skill needed for optho. Also the knowledge you gain from a medicine intership will be very valuable for ophtho, not only for the diseases mentioned above, but also when you are doing a preop on a patient and need to look at the ekg, and labs and understanding what diagnoses a patient carries. managing your inpatients diabetes when you hit them with a mega dose of steroids and they go into dka, etc...

 

[sublingual]

Thanks for the input guys!