Cornea, Cataract & Refractive Surgery Fellowship review@ The Eye Foundation, Coimbatore

Duration 1.5 yrs

2 fellows taken per session but 2nd fellow joins 7-8 months after the 1st fellow.

Stipend 50k

Only fellows who know phaco are selected, at the minimum you should be able to put IOL in sulcus in case of a PCR.

You get good hands-on in refrac procedures, allowed to do Lasik, SMILE etc independently within 3-4 months of joining.

Corneal surgeries- much lesser hands-on compared to cataracts, you get 10-12 keratoplasties (KP) at most, mostly therapeutic KP (final numbers depend on fellow's surgical proficiency).

You get to do 1 lamellar surgery at the very end of fellowship.

Free hands-on for other corneal procedures like pterygiums, C3R.

Fellows get trained by consultants in corneal procedures.

But phaco cases are left entirely to the fellow's discretion to operate and handle complications on their own when in OT, other consultants will be busy doing their own cases.

So if you know basic phaco, the program is good in helping you get better at it.

Timings 

If one fellow works 9-7.30 pm, then the other fellow works 10- 8 pm the same day and then both alternate timings next day.

You share night calls and Sunday duties with PGs, but often times they are posted in periphery so fellows end up getting more call duties.

Sunday duties 7 am- 7 am next day, 3 hour break, followed by joining back at duty from 10 am

Sundays- OP till 3 pm (avg 50 pts) and then you attend calls.. can get busy at times