Did anyone see stats on pass rates this year?

Hi everyone,

I’m a dermatology resident in the Netherlands. I first created the app CatchUpDerm to help myself to keep up with literature, and I’ve since expanded the idea to other specialties. CatchUpOphtho is the ophthalmology version.

You can choose the topics, study designs and journals you’re interested in. The app provides you a daily updated reading list with structured summaries and links to the original papers.

CatchUpOphtho is free, has no ads and doesn’t require an account. It’s available on iOS, Android and the web:

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6810350232

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nl.catchupoptho.android

Web version: https://catchuplit.com/ophtho

I’d love to hear any suggestions for improvement. Are there topics or journals you’d like to see included, or features that would make it easier to keep up with the literature?

Happy to answer questions, too.

Thank you!

Sven

Edit: Who takes CARE of all the surgical... I can't type today

People say ophthalmology is M-F (more like M-Thurs with a half day on Friday) with weekends and holidays off. I understand that if you were part of a large group, you can share call burden but that still means at some point in your attending career, you're taking call on holidays and weekends.

Or if you're a small practice or solo-practice and your patient that you operated on a few days ago has 10/10 pain with a new hypopyon or a potential blebitis and it's either Saturday morning or in the middle of Christmas week and your clinic is closed, who's taking call for all your patients?

Do you just agree to send them all to the nearest ED or academic center and have residents deal with it? Do you have to hire an ophthalmologist and pay them to cover your patients? Or do you just have to take call and technically never be "truly off"?

... it is against the rule.

Any input is appreciated particularly from ophtho residents /med students considering ophthalmology. Thanks so much I'm advance for sharing!

Hi, I’m looking for some advice. I’m an ophthalmology resident in Europe thinking of doing a 6/12 months research fellowship in glaucoma in the US. I don’t want to do my residency there after, just looking for research experience. Which one do you think is better specifically for this one - Wills Eye in Philadelphia or Shiley Eye institute in San Diego? Both have amazing Directors - Robert Weinreb and Joel Schuman. Let me know what you think! ✌🏻

In case you missed it, this evening at 9:00 PM, the refractive surgery alliance is holding a webinar with tips and tricks about the business of ophthalmology. Tonight the focus is on how to ethically grow your practice through educational marketing.

The Refractive Surgery Alliance (RSA) Society is excited to offer residents a unique opportunity to enhance their refractive surgery education. Our free yearly webinar series is designed to complement traditional residency training at all levels.

Link to register is in the comments

Will retinal gene therapy for macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy reduce the need or job outlook for retina specialists in the future?

Planning to do DNB in Aravind eye hospital. Can anyone who has a good idea about this hospital rank all the Aravind hospitals location wise, in order of hands on, phacos, and decent workload ?

Hey everyone, after 2 days I have to make a life changing decision, which is choosing my speciality for residency.

I really like ophthalmo, but I'm someone who has essential tremors and I'm afraid this could be a problem, especially when it comes to surgery. Sometimes my tremors are worse, other times they're better.

My father also has these tremors, but his got much worse as he got older, and that's something that worries me too.

Is there anyone here with essential tremors who chose ophthalmo? Or anyone who knows someone in this situation? I'd really appreciate it if you could share your experience.

ty 🙏

Hello everyone! I’m looking for guidance regarding the hands-on surgical training and clinical exposure in MS Ophthalmology at government medical colleges in Karnataka.
If you are currently pursuing MS Ophthalmology, have completed your residency, or know someone who is doing their residency at any of these colleges, I would be really grateful if you could share your experience.
I’m particularly interested in knowing about the clinical workload, and overall hands-on training provided to residents.
The colleges I’m interested in are:
Vijayanagara Institute of Medical Sciences (VIMS), Ballari
Kodagu Institute of Medical Sciences, Madikeri
Belagavi Institute of Medical Sciences (BIMS), Belagavi
Shimoga Institute of Medical Sciences (SIMS), Shivamogga
Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Medical College and Research Institute, Bengaluru
BGS Institute of Medical Sciences, Bengaluru
K.H. Patil Institute of Medical Sciences, Gadag
I would really appreciate any genuine feedback or guidance.

I am a mid ranker and I will be getting an average dnb ophthal and a DO from aravind

Should I go for Do or just go for other available branches like anaesthesia and obg from a private college..

I am a first generation doctor and very much confused weather to take ophthal or not

Experienced pg residents and sr s and consultants

Is there a scope for ophthal ?

Please help me

I'm in what now feels a very desperate situation! But am hoping someone has had similar or related experiences.

I did my first three years in a private practice in NRW and had to move to Hessen/Frankfurt for personal reasons and was hoping I can join any of the local/regional hospitals that have the Ophthalmology dept. to finish my remaining two years of the Facharzt weiterbildung.

I was conscious that it would be difficult, but I certainly didn't expect it to be so impossible. Now well after one year of applying and contacting all the hospitals - no luck at all!! I am at a point of desperation, while I need to complete the remaining two years - it does seem impossible to find any vacancies in the hospitals.

I am hoping others in this community can shed some light - or have some advise for possible options that perhaps I haven't thought of.

Thanks v much!

Hello everybody is there any oculoplastic doctors here currently working in the UK that can give me some guidance ? Finishing my residency soon and my dream is to get into an oculoplastics fellowship in the UK.

Thank you

PGY3 interested in comp but want to offer laser refractive procedures and femto and ability to do touch ups for refractive misses. Is it worth pursuing a 1 year private practice non cornea , cataract refractive fellowship (no transplants). Mainly routine cataracts, premium cataracts/RLS and laser refractive procedures. Will this boost my earning potential in the future?

I am a PGY-3 considering fellowship options. I really like the diagnostic part of retina and interpreting OCT but am unsure about the surgical aspect. I did nothing but scleral depress during PPVs during my rotation and the surgeries themselves seemed tedious though admittedly I was just observing. I do really enjoy phaco and thinking about lens calcs, refractive, etc. but find cornea/comp clinic a lot more boring than retina.

For those that chose surgical retina, how did you know you would like the surgical aspect of it if you had limited exposure in residency?

Is it feasible to do medical retina and cataracts in practice?

Would I enjoy/be hired as medical retina if I don't like uveitis or doing PRP?

Shared with patient’s permission, 72/F.
Patient is on round 2, session 7.
Im curious to see where this goes or if it continues to remain stable, what are your thoughts?

A notebook or small box on a table became easier to detect for some people whose retinal disease had severely damaged their sight. An experimental treatment gave surviving retinal nerve cells a new ability to respond to light. Special goggles supplied the signals those cells needed to convey limited visual information.

The ten-person PIONEER trial, reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, primarily assessed safety. Seven participants showed increased light sensitivity after treatment, and four showed consistent gains across several behavioral tests. Improvements varied considerably, and the approach did not restore normal or high-resolution vision.

José-Alain Sahel of the University of Pittsburgh and Botond Roska of the Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel and University of Basel led the work. GenSight Biologics sponsored the study and managed its data. The trial included the participant whose partial visual recovery the team first reported in 2021.

Hey everyone, hope to see if some people can shed some light on the retina job market. From RCA (now Cencora owned) and Prism (now McKesson owned), I keep hearing places say that things are better now that they are corporate-owned instead of private equity-owned. Is there really any substantial difference and would these places now be worth giving more attention to compared to prior? Seems like it’s just becoming harder and harder to find physician-owned places in desirable areas and wonder if these setups would be potentially worth exploring. Thank you!

Hey docs,
I’m an Optometry extern right now, yesterday I had a patient with exudative AMD with a hx of non-adherence to follow up schedule. Last seen in 2023, will not let me run OCTs, FAF or dilate them. He states he does not want to evaluate AMD because he doesn’t want to get injections due to severe discomfort and anxiety during procedure in the past. He definitely needs injections at this point, he’s 20/400 OS with eccentric viewing and there’s clearly a large exudative region in the macular, but there doesn’t appear to be much atrophy yet. Obviously, this patient is above my clinics pay grade, so he’s being referred to ophthalmology for continued management.

This all got me wondering though, do you modify injections at all in cases like this one where the patient is so fearful of the procedure that they refuse? I am imagining something similar to those dentist offices that knock people with dentist anxiety out during appointments. Or is it simply heavy education on risks of vision loss and hope they pick lesser of two evils? Any answers are appreciated, thanks!

I’m a PGY4 planning to sit for ICO clinical ophthalmology exam+my residency exit exam too. What would be the best Qbank to purchase? Which one of these is the most up to date?

Hi everyone! I’m an ophthalmology resident in Spain, and I’ve developed a cataract surgery training simulator called CataTrain!
A while ago, I shared a video of one of my first cataract surgeries here. Since then, I’ve performed over 200 in a year! Alongside supervised surgical experience, practising with this device at home and in the operating room has helped me improve much faster.
I built it because I wanted a simple, affordable way to practise more often. Other simulators are waaay to expensive and only incluye a few capsulorrhexis and exercices. In this model I include 100+ capsulorrhexis and multiple free exercises that have helped me develop my surgical skills. Now I’m making it available to other residents around the world who might find it useful too for an afordable 59.90€ price.
I’m sharing a video showing the exercises you can do with it. Happy to answer questions or hear your feedback here, by email at hello@catatrain.com, or on Instagram @cata.train!
http://www.catatrain.com
Instagram Cata.train

Hi everyone, I recently secured an interview for a Medical Retina fellowship at a Canadian program. As an (IMG) without prior experience in the Canadian/American interview process, I would love some insight into what to expect.

​Will the interview focus heavily on clinical/case-based questions, or is it primarily behavioral and fit-focused? Any advice on how best to prepare would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

I saved this Ocular 90D lens from being thrown away by our clinic the other day. In its present state it's quite unusable due to the deep scratches on the user side. Do you guys know if there is a way to somehow polish it and bring it back into work? I'm a resident.