Vitreo-Retinal Surgery Fellowship review @ The Eye Foundation, Coimbatore

2 year fellowship

Selection: Short MCQ exam for overall assessment followed by interaction with each consultant 

No fixed intake time of the year. Usually 2 fellows are already in the program at any given time. 1 fellow intake per year.

They require 25k caution deposit and keep your documents.

If you leave the fellowship midway, you will have to return all the salary received.

Stipend- 50k per month

No cataract for retina fellows.

OT posting starts after 6 months

Initial 1 month is more of observation 

Then SOR and steps start .

After 9 months you start getting independent simple cases such as VH. There is no restriction like in other VR fellowship programs of not getting membrane peeling cases. You get experience of all steps of all retinal surgeries.

But numbers you get is average, as there is only single OT table for Retina. So consultants have to make time in their list to give you cases and steps. There is also a charity hospital attached to Main Center with simple OT setup having Retikare. 

Clinical exposure is good. You get to see independent OPD right from 3-4 months of fellowship. Any doubts you can cross consult with consultants. You see variety of cases. Definitely uveitis , paediatric retina cases.

ROP not much exposure. No ROP laser exposure.

Work timings are 10:00 am to 7:30 pm. On OT days it can extend a little. 

Work environment is not toxic . Sometimes can get little hectic.

General night duty comes once in 2 weeks 

Sunday full-day and half-day duties once in 2 months

You do surgeries under guidance of consultants throughout the whole fellowship.

Lasers they have slit lamp (pattern also) and LIO. Laser exposure is great. You do independent laser from 3- 4th month of fellowship. Numbers are as high as 10-12 every day. Injections also very high load.

No official peripheral postings. Rarely they may send fellow for 1-2 weeks to peripheral branch to manage OPD and lasers.

Surgeries you commonly get:

Diabetic vitrectomies- VH, TRD, CRD , TPHM

RRD (very few cases) , 240 bands (few )

Macular hole (few), SFIOL (few)

Overall exposure is good. Numbers not comparable to other high volume centres.

First 3 Mondays of every month, Retina class will be there participated by Retina consultants of all branches and fellows from Coimbatore and RIK (Retina Institute of Karnataka), Bengaluru.

2 years fellowship = 18 months + 6 months 

Last 6 months, no night duty or Sunday full duty.

Salary will be same throughout.