Virginia Commonwealth University Health System

[Andrew_Doan]

Ophthalmology Residency Program Compendium Table of Contents

VCU Health System MCV Hospitals
401 N. 11th Street, 4th Floor
MCVH Box 980438
Richmond, Virginia 23298

http://views.vcu.edu/eye

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[vtrain]

as a current 2nd year at the vcu program, i have very few negatives to list about the program. since the new program director has taken over, he has implemented many new changes and really has turned things around. this is definitely becoming a sleeper program. the pathology we see is endless and the autonomy we have is significant. they definitely dont hold you hand here which can be a minus. it takes a lot of self motivation at this program, but if you are, you will excel. 1st year call is q3 which is rough since we are very heavy on trauma, but second year is MUCH better. daytime consults go to the 2nd years which can lead to a few late nights, but overall, you have much more time to read and do things that you didn't get to do in first year. we just hired a new retina guy and he is fantastic. very laid back and he's very proactive about getting you to do things in the OR. im on my retina rotation currently since july and ive already done 10 core vitrectomies on my own. the patient population is mostly indigent which means lots of end stage pathology which is great from a teaching standpoint. we currently have a fellow here training with us and he remarks that our general clinic is

 

[vtrain]

really a cornea clinic given the level of pathology that we do see. the biggest downside to this program would probably be our plastics exposure. we currently only have a private guy who comes down to vcu twice a month, operating one of those days. the department has been actively searching, but no luck as of yet. there is talk of the private guy coming to work full time in the future, but who knows. all in all, ive been very pleased with my time here thus far. i know this program was on probation a few years back, but that really is in the past. i wouldn't let that deter you at all from applying feel free to pm with any questions. good luck in the upcoming match.

 

[ILikeEyeballs]

Sounds like a great program but q3 call for 12 months?! How often do you get called in and do you get a post-call day?

 

[vtrain]

yeah q3 sucks. there's no way around it. no it's home call so you work the next day. the good thing is that it's only one year. like i said second year is MUCH better. even though it sucked i must say i learnt the most while on call. youre in the trenches and you have to think on your own. my cases that i saw will stay with me througout my career. we also did power weekends where you do one weekend fri-monday morning a month. the fourth weekend goes to the second year so ur not completely off primary in your second year. i would say i had to go in overnight at least 1/3 of my call days. you see your fair shar of globes and those always get bumped so those nights are long. i averaged ~2 calls a night. i had a few no hitters and i think one perfect game (ie pager didn't go off once not even for pt phone calls). that's the" downside" of a 3 man program obviously so keep that in mind. however the flip side is the immense learning opportunity that you get. you want to be busy in first year imho.

 

[Super66]

Overall I got a good impression of this program. I came out of interview day a fan. Richmond is a cool city with a decent amount of stuff going on. Beautiful old Victorian homes and lots of historical things. When I've read or spoken with other folks about this program in the past, what always inevitably got mentioned was how the PD Dr. Brar is really great. I can't speak to his abilities as PD/educator, but the residents are very big fans and say that his great love is teaching. I personally found him to be a very friendly and likable guy and enjoyed my interactions with him. I didn't get a great sense of how involved the chairman was with the residents and he didn't say a whole lot to me during my interview (where he was just one of three people in the room). Dr. Brar gave a sort of off-the-cuff talk about the program rather than a powerpoint presentation because he thought we could all just read the large packet they gave us ourselves. The chair did not give a talk.

One thing that came up was how the surgical numbers were in many cases greater than what appeared on the charts he gave us because some residents weren't logging their cases properly, but he would not fabricate anything that didn't get properly logged. The numbers were very good in almost everything if I remember correctly, especially in comparison to some other programs in the near region. Some numbers of certain things had, like, black bars over where the entry should have been like a redacted document. I didn't really understand this, but didn't bother to ask anyone what it meant. I thought it was kind of weird though.

They took us on a bus tour of Richmond with a real city tour guide (who was a total character) doing the narration along the way. I enjoyed it.

Pros:
- VA, not terribly far away from main site.
- Very involved PD.
- Strong didactics.
- Totally decent #'s, busy clinic
- Residents were very friendly/fun and seemed pleased with their program.
- Faculty slowly growing stronger, recent acquisition of an oculoplastics faculty member (something they had been lacking until now)
- good vibes
- Richmond.

Cons:
- fellowship match? They do not publish this information on their website nor do I think recent matches were included in our info packets. I'm sure I asked about it at some point, but did not record whatever I found out and no longer remember.
- Call q3 (see above), but I heard talk of the program adding a 4th resident for incoming 2018 PGY-2's (for future reference.) We were told that it's already been approved by the powers that decide that stuff.
- apparently you get tested on didactic stuff regularly. This could be a pro or con depending on how you look at it I suppose.