Cornea & Anterior Segment Fellowship review @ LV Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad

Duration 3 yrs

3-4 fellows taken every year

Selection- Series of clinical assessment interviews

Stipend- 50k in first 2 yrs, 75k in 3rd yr

All LVP fellowships are divided into 3 periods-

First 9 months is "induction posting" (posted in other speciality depts)

Next 1 year is in a secondary centre

Last 15 months is in your speciality 

The first 9 months is again divided- initial 4 months is in other dept postings and last 4-5 months in Cornea dept

In the initial 4 months, you are trained in SICS and phaco (simultaneously).

Initially you are posted in what is called a "training OR" where there are alloted trainers to teach you surgery.

This OR happens one week every month.

For eg if one month you're in glaucoma,

then one week in that month is cataract posting

rest 3 weeks glaucoma posting.

In that one week, depending on the roster they give cases, some people get 5 cases, some get 7.

When you're doing Cornea posting in the latter 4 months of the induction period, you get smaller speciality-related surgeries like pterygiums, excisions, few TPKs etc

During induction period, once you get surgically proficient in training OR, you are shifted to what is called "fellow OR" where you do 8-10 cases per OT... you get 2-3 such OTs every month.

If you pick up surgical skills well in this period, then they will post you to the secondary centre early.

So instead of 9 months, if you had to do only 7 months and then they sent you to the secondary centre, the remaining 2 months of the induction period are carried over to the last speciality period of 15 months.

The secondary centre posting of 1 year is fixed, cannot be reduced or increased. During this time, you manage the centre yourself and do all surgeries.

Last phase of 15/+ months are spent in speciality.

You get training for all major corneal surgeries in the last phase.

Hands on for lamellar keratoplasties and refractive surgeries given only in last 6 months and tends to be limited- ~6 nos/ month.

Complicated cataracts are managed by Cornea dept, so good exposure that way.

Clinical exposure is extensive, dept is hectic, OPD runs till 7 or 8 pm.

OTs tend to finish late, may even go past 10 pm.

Emergency duties- 2/month

Sundays mostly working, only 1 Sunday free in a month

Daily classes +

Cornea program in the main KAR campus tends to be more hectic compared to other centres of LVP.