Any more information on this program?
I interviewed there this year and here is my (long) recap. Loved this program. Take good notes along the interview trail!
Excellent upper-tier Midwest program in an amazing city! Madison is at it's heart a college town and thus the pulse of the campus is driven by UW athletics and the institution in general. That being said it is a wonderful city for people of all ages. Many lakes, running and biking trails. It is also the capital city of Wisconsin so it is much more cosmopolitan than a simple college town (i.e orchestra, museums, arts, hip social scene for 25-35 year olds). The program is 8th in the country in NIH research (usually ranked 3-10) and they have some big players in the retina and ophthalmologic epidemiology reaserach fields. Recently, a number of their faculty are going down the clinician-educator career path and have had major articles published regarding resident surgical education. They have reduced surgical complication rates (of their noobie residents) to lower than average private practice complication rates. The program has been rated as high as the #4 ophtho residency program in the entire country about 10 years ago via Ophtho Times. They had a probation issue shortly after their pinnacle and have dropped out of those rankings for what it is worth. Nonetheless UW is still undoubtedly a top quartile ophtho program in the country.
Ok more about the program:
# residents per year: 3, this makes it a smaller program than many.
Rotations: They do 4 month rotations in the sub-specialties and comprehensive at the VA. The UW hospital, Children's hospital and VA are all in the same block. This is great as you don't have to drive all over town to take call.
Salary: starting is $55,000. Very high salary and cost of living in Madison is right about average for a US city.
Call: Q3 primary during your first year. Very front loaded! Weekends are covered by 1 resident 5p Friday to 8a Monday. Someone wil be on backup call. Thus 7 of the 9 residents have a "golden" weekend on any given weekend. Call is not terribly busy but being on call Q3 for a whole year makes this a tough year. It is a level 1 trauma center for a large land area and you will get plenty of drunk kids with eye lacs (big college town) but generally you will not be up all night. As a 2nd/3rd year you are Q6 back-up/surgical call (by weeks).
Didactics: Monday and Friday you have conference at 7a. Otherwise clinics start at 8a. Friday afternoon is protected lecture time (1:30-4:30) for BCSC review.
Fellowship placement: Program is most prestigious in retina and plastics but they place well into all fields. They have a large number of faculty and have faculty in every subspecialty including pathology and genetics. This year they placed cornea at UCSF, glaucoma at UTSW and retina at UW (home).
Overall, I was extremely impressed by this program! The program director was incredibly pleasant and heavily invested in improving resident education. The current chair is retiring this coming fall and a replacement has yet to be named.
