IOL Fellowship review @ Shroff Charitable Eye Hospital, New Delhi

Duration 2 years 

Phaco training starts after 8 months. Till then you do SICS. IOL fellows share cataract cases with specialty fellows.

Initially there's 15-20 days of induction, then you can start OT in stepwise manner. A lot depends on how much surg exposure you had before in PG. 

In IOL op, you only see comprehensive patients. You are supposed to manage all op cases independently. No exposure to speciality opd cases 

Work is hectic and work environment is mostly not toxic. You'll find one odd person who is toxic. Rest are not toxic. But definitely hectic. 

After initial 3 months training period, whosoever is the senior fellow/ consultant available trains you. They take over if you face any difficulty while operating and handle the case but they won't be there to supervise your whole case from start to finish since they have to finish their own cases too. But you can observe what they did on your case and keep learning. Also quality of surg training varies from consultant to consultant and peripheral centre to centre.

Only other surgeries that IOL fellows get to do are pterygiums, maybe some tarsorraphies.

Phaco numbers depend on centre you are posted in (min 500 +). Hectic centres you get average of 1500 cases.

No refractive training offering in this IOL fellowship.

After 3 months of training in Delhi, you are permanently posted in periphery. So basically your whole fellowship is a peripheral posting where there are 2 consultants and around 10 fellows roughly.

1-2 camp duties a month. 1-2 night calls a month.

Working hours starts at 8 am. So classes are online for IOL fellows as they are in periphery mostly. Class starts at 8 am via zoom on Tues and Wed.

Note-

They take 60k admission fees before you join, no refund.

Stipend is 55k but you get around 30-35k in hand as they cut hostel charges and TDS and caution money also.

Caution money they cut 10% x 6 months then 20 percent then 30 percent.

But this caution money is returned at the end of 2 yrs after you finish.