southwestcombinedfellow
New Member
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2024
- Messages
- 1
- Reaction score
- 0
I remember being in the fellowship application process and having trouble finding much information online about most programs. Given that, I wanted to share about the one I just completed - the Southwest Combined Cornea and Glaucoma Fellowship in Albuquerque, NM.
This fellowship lies a little off the beaten trail. I was probably among many to say "Albuquerque, where's that?" when it came up on my fellowship search list. However, for a small program (which only just started a residency beginning 2024-25), the fellowship offers a surprisingly robust training in an incredible city.
Time in the fellowship is split between the University of New Mexico (about 2/3) and a private practice called Southwest Eyecare (about 1/3). I found this advantageous because the university clinic time is slower, there's fewer patients per half day, and there's more time to get into detail discussing each patient's case. The private practice side is a chance to get used to private practice speed, learn a quick workflow in a graded fashion, and see a different population.
The fellowship really is evenly split between cornea and glaucoma. My numbers are below, but you'll see that it encompasses the range of tubes, trabs, EKs and PKs, as well as some of the complex anterior segment skills. One helpful question that can be hard to quantify is what is the quality vs quantity of surgical training. For my part, coming out of this training I plan to do valved and non-valved tubes and revisions, DMEK/DSEK, corneal patch grafts, MIGS including Xen, sutured IOLs with pars plana vitrectomies, pupilloplasties, pterygia, and refractive cataract surgery. Notably, the fellowship does not include a refractive component. At this point I'm not sure that I will be doing trabeculectomies or optical penetrating keratoplasties. If it became necessary, I definitely could do either surgery but the need for it would depend on practice setting.
There's a relatively high amount of call in the fellowship - for comparison, I found it a bit heavier than PGY-4 call in residency. The fellow covers backup for residents at UNM (although the UNM residency is just starting, visiting residents from Tufts and Pittsburgh cover primary call) about every 5-6 weeks. While covering backup call, the fellow triages ophthalmology emergency room visits from the entire state of New Mexico, which is a great lesson in finding solutions in a limited resource environment. The fellow also covers cornea or glaucoma patients at all times, which means urgent tubes or patch grafts come up even when not on formal call. The fellow also covers the private practice about every 2-4 weeks which is such light call that a lot of times I'd forget I was even covering. In terms of research, there are opportunities which prior fellows took advantage of but I didn't participate in any research (it's there, but not a highlight at this point).
One of the biggest strengths of the fellowship is that all of the mentors are really, really nice across both settings. Everyone is friendly and looks out for the fellow's best interests. It takes the pressure off during tense surgical moments and makes the days just genuinely fun. Albuquerque is also a great city to live in. There are a ton of outdoor activities, a mild climate, and an interesting cultural scene with a lot of influence from the surrounding Native American reservations. It's a great place for mountain biking, hiking, camping, and floats down the Rio Grande. How great is the city? Well 3 out of 3 fellows decided to stay in Albuquerque after fellowship!
If you have any questions this cycle (Fall 2024) or next cycle (Fall 2025) feel free to reach out. Since there wasn't a fellow matched for the coming year I'll be the next closest resource. I'll keep notifications on if you want to DM me at this account. Also if you're wondering why there wasn't a fellow matched in 2024-25, there wasn't any specific reason or any red flags, my impression is that it's just a small pool of anterior segment fellowships and the interest level overall was lower last cycle.
I definitely recommend the fellowship to anyone looking to broaden their surgical skill set after residency, or who wants to incorporate parts of both cornea and glaucoma into their future practice, or who is looking to develop the anterior segment toolkit (sutured IOLs, vitrectomy, pupilloplasty, complex cataracts) without siloing into cornea or glaucoma alone. The fellowship offers all of that and is customizable to focus on what any particular fellow needs - the bottom line is flexibility. Good luck to all and please reach out with questions!
Surgical Numbers (Primary Surgeon):
This fellowship lies a little off the beaten trail. I was probably among many to say "Albuquerque, where's that?" when it came up on my fellowship search list. However, for a small program (which only just started a residency beginning 2024-25), the fellowship offers a surprisingly robust training in an incredible city.
Time in the fellowship is split between the University of New Mexico (about 2/3) and a private practice called Southwest Eyecare (about 1/3). I found this advantageous because the university clinic time is slower, there's fewer patients per half day, and there's more time to get into detail discussing each patient's case. The private practice side is a chance to get used to private practice speed, learn a quick workflow in a graded fashion, and see a different population.
The fellowship really is evenly split between cornea and glaucoma. My numbers are below, but you'll see that it encompasses the range of tubes, trabs, EKs and PKs, as well as some of the complex anterior segment skills. One helpful question that can be hard to quantify is what is the quality vs quantity of surgical training. For my part, coming out of this training I plan to do valved and non-valved tubes and revisions, DMEK/DSEK, corneal patch grafts, MIGS including Xen, sutured IOLs with pars plana vitrectomies, pupilloplasties, pterygia, and refractive cataract surgery. Notably, the fellowship does not include a refractive component. At this point I'm not sure that I will be doing trabeculectomies or optical penetrating keratoplasties. If it became necessary, I definitely could do either surgery but the need for it would depend on practice setting.
There's a relatively high amount of call in the fellowship - for comparison, I found it a bit heavier than PGY-4 call in residency. The fellow covers backup for residents at UNM (although the UNM residency is just starting, visiting residents from Tufts and Pittsburgh cover primary call) about every 5-6 weeks. While covering backup call, the fellow triages ophthalmology emergency room visits from the entire state of New Mexico, which is a great lesson in finding solutions in a limited resource environment. The fellow also covers cornea or glaucoma patients at all times, which means urgent tubes or patch grafts come up even when not on formal call. The fellow also covers the private practice about every 2-4 weeks which is such light call that a lot of times I'd forget I was even covering. In terms of research, there are opportunities which prior fellows took advantage of but I didn't participate in any research (it's there, but not a highlight at this point).
One of the biggest strengths of the fellowship is that all of the mentors are really, really nice across both settings. Everyone is friendly and looks out for the fellow's best interests. It takes the pressure off during tense surgical moments and makes the days just genuinely fun. Albuquerque is also a great city to live in. There are a ton of outdoor activities, a mild climate, and an interesting cultural scene with a lot of influence from the surrounding Native American reservations. It's a great place for mountain biking, hiking, camping, and floats down the Rio Grande. How great is the city? Well 3 out of 3 fellows decided to stay in Albuquerque after fellowship!
If you have any questions this cycle (Fall 2024) or next cycle (Fall 2025) feel free to reach out. Since there wasn't a fellow matched for the coming year I'll be the next closest resource. I'll keep notifications on if you want to DM me at this account. Also if you're wondering why there wasn't a fellow matched in 2024-25, there wasn't any specific reason or any red flags, my impression is that it's just a small pool of anterior segment fellowships and the interest level overall was lower last cycle.
I definitely recommend the fellowship to anyone looking to broaden their surgical skill set after residency, or who wants to incorporate parts of both cornea and glaucoma into their future practice, or who is looking to develop the anterior segment toolkit (sutured IOLs, vitrectomy, pupilloplasty, complex cataracts) without siloing into cornea or glaucoma alone. The fellowship offers all of that and is customizable to focus on what any particular fellow needs - the bottom line is flexibility. Good luck to all and please reach out with questions!
Surgical Numbers (Primary Surgeon):
| 2023-24 | |
| Penetrating Keratoplasties | 13 |
| DMEK | 13 |
| DSEK | 3 |
| Trabeculectomies | 7 |
| Valved Tubes | 32 |
| Non-Valved Tubes | 2 |
| Tube Revisions | 2 |
| Bleb Needling | 3 |
| Xen | 23 |
| Hydrus | 15 |
| iStent | 6 |
| OMNI | 3 |
| iTrack | 32 |
| CPC/MP3 | 11 |
| Sutured IOLs | 11 |
| MSICS | 3 |
| IOL Exchanges | 3 |
| Secondary sulcus IOLs | 2 |
| Pars Plana Vitrectomies | 9 |
| Other Cataracts | 175 |
| Pupilloplasty | 2 |
| Pterygium | 45 |
| Conjunctival Lesion Excision | 2 |
| Amniotic Membrane Transplant | 4 |
| Miscellaneous (tarso, chalazion, SK, globes) | 27 |
| Total Surgeries | 448 |
| YAG | 22 |
| SLT | 16 |
| LPI | 8 |
| Total Lasers | 46 |
