Glaucoma Fellowship review@ Agarwal's Eye Hospital, Chennai

Duration of fellowship - 1 year, might change to 1.5 yrs in the next intake in 2026 

Selection- biannual intake (April/ Oct) 

You have to fill in the application, once you’re shortlisted there will be an interview. 

Fellows per session- usually 2 intakes per dept per intake but it might slightly vary.

Stipend- 30k/ month

Cataracts are given.

SICS, phacos and very minimum trabs ( mostly 5 SICS, 30-50 phacos, 10-15 trabs)

Can expect 40-60 phacos at least, can be more too. Depends on how many foreign trainees come for training during the time of your fellowship since cases are usually allotted first for foreign trainees and then to fellows and PGs.

You might get complicated cataracts if competent.

No iris claws given.

Only glued IOLs chances given. No training in vitrectomy.

OPD exposure is very good, the consultants are friendly and approachable. 

Yag caps and Yag PIs you get good numbers. 

There’s a good research team, everything is very well documented here, they often motivate you for research publications.

It’s a standard work environment. The day depends on how many cases are posted in the OT, as the OPD starts after OT. 

1 night duty/ month, 1 camp duty/ month, Sunday duties 1-2 . 

So you’re almost occupied the entire month. 

Work might start as early as 7.30/ 8.30 am, usually ends by 5.30 pm

There’s no one-on-one training as such. You learn by observing, you can see the camp cases. You can approach the consultants and cross check your findings. 

Many MIGS and GATT cases are operated here by consultants. Wetlab trainings are given regularly. But, no hands-on usually given, might get a case or two.

Peripheral postings +

Monthly journal discussion and case presentations... along with that we get to attend the classes taken for DNB on our speciality topics.

The only thing that was annoying was that the first 1.5 months is spent in "orientation" where you’re rotated in all sub-speciality departments to see how things work, felt it was unnecessarily long.