Cornea & Refractive Surgery Fellowship (3 YEARS) review @ Shroff's Charity Eye Hospital, New Delhi

- 1st yr exclusive IOL fellowship

- 2nd year- formal Cornea training

- 3rd yr managing periphery doing both cataract+ cornea 

- Refractive training only in last 3 months of fellowship 

- Selection- MCQ exam+ interview

- No exit exam

- 1-2 fellows per session

- Admission fee 1 lac, non-refundable 

- Stipend 40k in 1st yr, 50k in 2nd, 60k in 3rd 

- From your stipend they deduct 7,500 every month as security deposit which is returned when you finish fellowship

1st year

- Exclusively IOL

- First 3 months is in main centre- you do SICS mostly 

- Then you are posted in periphery for rest of the year where you do both SICS & phaco

2nd year

- Cornea training 

- First 9 months or so- in main centre, posted with a consultant who trains you in corneal surgeries- TPKs, OKs, DSEK, SLET, AMG etc

3rd year

- After that you're posted in one of their 5 major peripheral centres where you are the sole cornea consultant and you see and manage cases there independently. You also post cases to operate.

- Last 3 months you are given lots of hands-on for refractive procedures, mostly Lasik and PRK, may get few SMILEs also

- Work timings are 8-6 pm

- In main centre, you'll have night duty and Sunday duties once a month

- In periphery, it becomes night calls every 3-4 nights, Sunday rounds only if you have Saturday OT

- Clinical exposure is very good, you see every kind of case

- Not hectic

- Not toxic either

- Weekly 3 classes- 2 of those are common with other fellows, third is just for cornea fellows

A mention about their peripheral centres and postings:

- They have 4-5 major peripheral centres

- And many more minor peripheral centres which are also located in other states (eg Haryana, Bihar, Uttarakhand)

- In your 1st yr, you may be posted in one of their minor centres without prior notice so it can get hectic with all the travelling back and forth

- After your formal Cornea training in 2nd yr, you are posted to one of their major peripheral centres in Delhi and usually not rotated between centres (unless there's some last min emergencies/changes)

Overall a very good fellowship and you exit as an independent Cornea and Cataract surgeon. You usually learn everything there is to learn in first 2 years so some fellows find the 3rd year more of a mental hurdle to get through.