I'm a current resident here at UMKC and I thought I'd share my thoughts on this program and give a few details for those who are curious. I love it here and think it is excellent training. There are a few good previous reviews but nothing recent so I figured I'd update everyone.
We have daily weekday lectures at 7:30 given by a faculty member. There is a structured curriculum so we systematically touch on all major topics before the OKAP. This includes monthly practice management lectures from our chairman. Residents then go to clinic or surgery at 8:30. We are usually done by 5 or 5:30. 1st and 2nd years split primary call q6, and the 3rd years cycle as surgical backup 1 week at a time (q3rd wk). Clinic volume is high, which is good for experience obviously, but not so high that we routinely run late or anything. I feel I have plenty of time to read and have a life outside of work too. Call volume is variable, busy on the weekends, but the majority of weekday calls I get at least 6 hours of sleep.
The majority of your 3 years is at the Truman Hospital Downtown eye clinic, with other rotations being at Children's Mercy, Truman Lakewood, St. Luke's Hospital, and Research Medical Center. The Truman (the KC MO county hospital) facilities are newly remodeled this year, and it is possibly one of the nicest county hospital eye clinics you'll come across. All ancillary equipment in that clinic (lasers, OCT, FA camera, etc) is up-to-date and I don't think we have any deficiencies there - well, maybe we're lacking a pentacam
. We have a new resident lounge, and an Eyesi surgical simulator/wetlab area. The Children's Hospital is one of the largest peds referral centers over an area of hundreds of miles. Plans are in the works to move to a brand new Children's clinic facility within the next few years (the current one is great anyways). The peds ophtho department there is probably one of the 5 largest in the country and you get excellent peds experience.
Surgeries are done at the Eye Foundation which is a beautiful little eye institute that has just recently (2011) been remodeled as well. This is adjacent to the main clinic area (2 minute walk). There are two dedicated eye ORs and a minor procedure room in the foundation. OR staff is VERY knowledgeable and helps you tremendously while you are learning surgery. Its always nice to have someone hand you the instrument you need before you realize you need it. You can expect 120+ cataracts; about 20-30 phacos your 2nd year and 100+ your 3rd. We're one of the few programs that residents actually get to do refractive procedures as primary, most will do about 10 lasik or PRK as primary depending on their level of interest. There's also plenty of the other subspecialty surgeries as well.
There are no "rotations" per say (like, cornea for 2 months, glaucoma for 2 months...). Rather, each half day of the week is a different subspecialty, or a general clinic. Every Monday afternoon is plastics, every Tuesday is Retina, and so on. This can be a pretty steep learning curve at first, but in my opinion it's better in the long run because you're staying up on all subspecialties continuously, rather than doing glaucoma for 2 months at the beginning of your first year and not coming back to it for another full year. You never really get a chance to get "rusty" in any one area.
All clinics are staffed by a private practice attending (the same one every week, not a random community ophthalmologist that only comes once every few months). Along those lines, there is a private practice feel to the training, which is great because we learn things like coding and business of medicine alongside everything else. Currently we have 5 retina attendings (and 1 fellow), 6 peds (and 1 fellow), 3 glaucoma, 1 plastics, 1 oncologist/generalist, 1 refractive specialist/generalist, 1 neuro, 1 pathologist/generalist, and 1 cornea attending with plans to add another cornea attending next academic year. As you can see, our strengths are retina, peds, and glaucoma. Everything else is well balanced. The only area I feel we are somewhat weak in is cornea, but that should change with the addition of a new cornea attending next year.
I agree with previous comments that this program has a very family-like feel. I'm close friends with the other residents and we usually hang out in our free time too. The attendings are all very open, we have journal club at their houses, I have no reservations about calling them after hours (even when they're not on call). We have a pretty equal split between single and married residents; I think you would feel at home here whether you're single and plan to stay that way or if you're married and already have kids. The city itself caters to both sides as well, with plenty to do from fine dining/cool bars to a fun day with the family at the water park. Actually, Kansas City is undergoing somewhat of an urban renaissance, with a new downtown entertainment district, and several older more established neighborhoods like The Plaza and Westport provide dining, socializing, and shopping opportunities.
1 research project and 1 case report are required by the end of 3 years. The emphasis is more on clinical training than research, though more than a few have graduated here and gone on to academics. If you have a research interest there is ample opportunity, with a large group of PhDs doing some very interesting basic research at the affiliated Vision Research Foundation and plenty of participation in clinical trials as well. Our chairman would say that you're given everything on a silver platter, it's up to you what you want to do with it. Most that have graduated here go on to private practice, with a little more than half doing a fellowship.
Conclusion
I think we are a solid, community-based residency program with an emphasis on clinical training and a positive "family-like" feel. I'm very happy I ended up at UMKC, I feel that I will be 100% equipped for practice after training here.
