Will you or did you do residency?

[q1we3]

what are the pros and cons of doing residency? Which residencies can open the most doors for an O.D who wants to work in hospital setting? Anyone planning on doing Ocular Disease or Refractive and Ocular Surgery residency?

Any opinion would be welcome, thanks for replying!

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[KHE]

what are the pros and cons of doing residency? Which residencies can open the most doors for an O.D who wants to work in hospital setting? Anyone planning on doing Ocular Disease or Refractive and Ocular Surgery residency?

Any opinion would be welcome, thanks for replying!

This pros and cons of optometric residencies have been discussed numerous times on here. Try the search function and you've got more specific questions, post them.

 

[imemily]

what are the pros and cons of doing residency? Which residencies can open the most doors for an O.D who wants to work in hospital setting? Anyone planning on doing Ocular Disease or Refractive and Ocular Surgery residency?

Any opinion would be welcome, thanks for replying!

I think if you want to teach at an optomety school, a residency would be required.

 

[thecgrblue]

what are the pros and cons of doing residency? Which residencies can open the most doors for an O.D who wants to work in hospital setting? Anyone planning on doing Ocular Disease or Refractive and Ocular Surgery residency?

Any opinion would be welcome, thanks for replying!

I'm currently planning on doing an Ocular Disease one. However, one of the fellowships for Traumatic Brain Injuries is also in there. In my mind the one thing that can never be taken from you is your education and in theory the more I have the more opportunities I could be open to. We'll see.

 

[Commando303]

what are the pros and cons of doing residency? Which residencies can open the most doors for an O.D who wants to work in hospital setting? Anyone planning on doing Ocular Disease or Refractive and Ocular Surgery residency?

Any opinion would be welcome, thanks for replying!

As far as I've thus been able to tell, "the residency" is one of those things everyone (in the academic world) raves about but almost no one actually undertakes. If you want the additional guided experience, I think it makes sense to go for it; if you're just afraid to get out there and start working (I'm not suggesting you, yourself, are), using a residency as a year-long wet-blanket probably isn't a great idea.

 

[Shnurek]

From what I understand most people are over-trained in optometry school in the things they will need to do in practice especially in states like Massachusetts, New York and other narrow scope of practice states. I personally would do a residency in something like ocular disease or refractive surgery in Oklahoma so that if and when the scope of practice of optometry expands, you will have been prepared. But it is a gamble and you obviously must be interested in that particular residency field. Also it never hurts to tell your patients that you did a residency in so and so

 

[mclem222]

Pros: learn more

Cons: spend an extra year

I think it comes down to your school and training. If you think you need more..you need more. If you think you are fine you are probably fine. I didn't do a residency. I felt fine after school but I had classmates who wanted to do more. I dont think they know more than me now but kind of brought themselves up to my comfort level. For some people it may be completely unnecessary..others may really need it.

 

[Eyes99]

what are the pros and cons of doing residency? Which residencies can open the most doors for an O.D who wants to work in hospital setting? Anyone planning on doing Ocular Disease or Refractive and Ocular Surgery residency?

Any opinion would be welcome, thanks for replying!

The first thing you should know is that every OD can not do a residency. There are only enough spots in accredited programs for maybe 20-25% of the graduating class to do a residency. I'm sure the numbers are available somewhere. Also, unless the new schools start some residency programs this will get worse in 2 years when another 170 or so ODs join the 2013 graduating class.

A residency may make you more employable, except I see residents going to retail jobs every year. Residencies are good if you want to work for the VA or get more specialized training (Peds/BV, CLs, Low Vision).

However, there is a cost, the opportunity costs of doing a residency. Most pay only $30,000 to $40,000. So you have to figure the difference in what you would make that year.

I don't know anyone who ever regretted doing a residency, but don't overemphasize the importance of them.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[jeh198]

I know several of my classmates that pursued a residency. There are some really solid residency positions out there for a bright and ambitious ODs. However, I would never do a residency at an optometry school. Those residency programs are nothing more than a 5th year of optometry school. You do the exact same exam protocol and listen to the exact same bull**** from academic doctors that you did in your fourth year in-house rotations. In general those doctors have absolutely no idea of what it takes to make it in real world optometric practice. I'd rather work in an ophthalmology group for a year; you'll make more money and become a better clinician without having to do 2 hour exams on asymptomatic patients.

 

[IndianaOD]

Highly recommend a residency. I think it is also good for the profession as residency trained ODs tend to treat more (and take better care of their patients) and refer less.

I can't stand ODs who refer everything out. Use your training!

 

[thiaeyemd]

I think probably the term you want to use is "refer appropriately". I have had a multitude of patients with skin cancers there were watched by docs in my state who held on to them for whatever reason and ended up I had to take off a large part of the eyelid. One patient had infiltration into the maxillary sinus and one other had infiltration into the nasolacrimal system. I saw the photos when they were initially seen 2-3 years prior and they were small lesions. I think the quality of the referral is probably more appropriate than the quantity. Not sending things out because you simply don't want to send things out is a compromise of care. The referral docs won't say anything about it because they don't want to lose the referrals so they will say " I can see why you did that" or "It can be tough to diagnoses" or say nothing at all.

 

[ac05]

I recently finished my residency in traumatic/acquired brain injury and now I am getting ready to start my job evaluating/treating soldiers with tbi at an army hospital. I think there are definitely more opportunities opening up for optometrists with this specialty because it is non-surgical and also because we can make a major impact in these patient's lives. The things you'll need (or interests that you should have) to succeed/enjoy this specialty is 1. strong interest/knowledge of neuroanatomy/neurological disease as well as binocular vision/vision therapy/some low vision 2. patience and a warm personality since these patients have been through some very traumatic events and some of them have mood/affect changes because of their condition. In terms of salary, I can only speak for myself but it pays very well probably because there aren't that many people doing it, although I really wouldn't advise going down this path if that is your primary motivation.

I read these forums and some of the people seem very frustrated with the profession, and also some insecurities regarding the refractive focus of our profession, to those people I would like to add my two cents : 1. A large percentage of the patients that I saw during my residency had seen multiple ophthalmologists before coming to see me, they were unable to help these patients with their very significant visual problems because most of them were refractive/oculomotor/binocular/visuovestibular/visual processing based. We were able not only to explain to them why they were experiencing these problems, but we were also able to rehabilitate many if not all of their symptoms and through that they are able to live much more fuller lives. I would also like to point out that most of these patients were referred by MDs and I have even had a few MDs as patients. 2. It is impossible for us to see (and subsequently treat) as much disease (in primary care optometry) as OMDs because they are a referral based practice and we are not, but even with that being said, I find primary care to be rewarding binocular/accommodative problems are much more common than ocular disease and it does have a major impact on people's lives---> ie a person is going to be relieved that you found a retinal tear, but that tear was most likely having a minimal impact on the person's daily life, but if a person has a decompensating esophoria and can't read for more than 10 minutes without a headache and you can fix that, that's a big deal.

I really cannot complain, optometry has been good to me so far and I think that there are great opportunities if you focus on what our strengths are.

 

[ABaverage]

I'd like to know.. is there really only spots for 20-25% of the graduating ODs to go for a residency? Don't forget the practicing ODs that have decided they want to do a residency after so many years..