I was interested in getting some feedback about you for subspecialties for someone who went into ophtho thinking they would be a great phaco surgeon only to find out in their final year of training that they were not. Is it possible to do glaucoma or peds w/o doing cataract sugery. How difficult is retina? Are there many jobs in medical retina or pathology? Have been searching for Lasik positions but not having much luck. Please advise.
subspecialties for non cataract surgeons
- Thread starter eyegal
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It is difficult to do glaucoma without doing cataracts at all. Peds I imagine is much less difficult, but there are still pediatric cataracts. I find it somewhat unlikely that a poor cataract surgeon would make a good vitreoretinal surgeon, but I suppose you never know. You could certainly avoid cataracts. Medical retina sounds like a good bet also. Most LASIK surgeons I know are also well known cataract surgeons, so that seems unlikely.
Edit: I seem to remember a few of your previous threads. What makes you think you would be good at other types of surgery? (I'm not trying to offend, I'm just wondering.) For instance, I wouldn't necessarily think that any of the other types of surgery are a lot easier than cataracts, just different.
Edit: I seem to remember a few of your previous threads. What makes you think you would be good at other types of surgery? (I'm not trying to offend, I'm just wondering.) For instance, I wouldn't necessarily think that any of the other types of surgery are a lot easier than cataracts, just different.
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Your not even half-way through your 3rd year yet, I would it say it is too early for you to make this kind of judgement call. Maybe your are doing just fine, and you believe you are not because your co-residents are far above the curve...
You don't have to be the best or greatest cataract surgeon to serve your patients well. You just have to be a competent phaco surgeon. Once you are futher along into your 3rd year and you have done 80-100 cataracts, look at your numbers and decide if your broken capsule percentage and dropped nucleus percentages are similar to published averages. If they are just a little higher, then probably that will improve with hard work and experience.
If they are a lot higher, then try to deterimine specifically why. It helps a lot to record your surgeries and review it later. You may be your own best critic. You can also time each step in the surgery to determine if any given step is where you are struggling or taking longer than it should.
There are fellowships in Peds, plastics, Neuro, Pathology, Uveitis, medical retina, genetics, or ultrasound and electrophysiology if you truly find that cataract surgery is not for you.
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There is good advice in the previous posts.
Another option to consider if intraocular surgery sends your blood pressure through the roof is doing medical ophthalmology. I just came back from the AAO meeting, and I met several senior ophthalmologists seeking medical ophthalmologists to generate more surgeries for themselves. As a medical ophthalmologist, you would join the practice, see clinic, and if there are surgical cases, your partners perform surgery.
Another option to consider if intraocular surgery sends your blood pressure through the roof is doing medical ophthalmology. I just came back from the AAO meeting, and I met several senior ophthalmologists seeking medical ophthalmologists to generate more surgeries for themselves. As a medical ophthalmologist, you would join the practice, see clinic, and if there are surgical cases, your partners perform surgery.
