Vitreo-Retina Fellowship review @ Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi, Kerala

I did my VR from Amrita, it was one of my best experiences. You won't believe, within just 6 months of joining I was doing an RD surgery independently. After 1.5 yrs, I was operating on sir's private cases and he would often leave me alone in OT so I could finish them on my own. I was posting my own cases by the end of fellowship and operating all of them as well. In the last 4 months I even got to do surgery for a baby with ROP.

The duration is for 2 years and selection is via MCQ exam followed by interview 

They take only 2 fellows per session

Stipend is 50,000

Gopal sir (Dr Gopal Pillai) is a stellar retina surgeon, he would finish cases within 15-20 mins. He really changed my thinking and mindset in fellowship, he convinced us that retinal surgeries don't have to take hours. Seeing his example, it was natural we also motivated ourselves to follow the same lead.

Daily work times are 9am - 5 pm but work would often go on till 6.30/ 7 pm. We had to take classes for UG and PG students also and our surgery times were in the afternoon 2-5 pm.. towards the end, I was routinely doing 4 cases just in those 3 hours. 

Fellowship is a mayhem of sorts 😅 don't expect a lot of free time, Sundays are usually not free and if you are on call, you gave to attend to every emergency that comes.. which means if a corneal tear came, you had to operate, nobody else was going to come and do it.. that way you also get holistic hands-on and learn how to manage time and staff to keep OT running smoothly.

Night calls were plenty and you had to attend as they came. There were no public holidays.

But these things were ok for me, because I got so much hands-on and Gopal sir was a great mentor that I found my fellowship very rewarding.

I'm acquainted with retina fellows in LVP (LV Prasad Hospital) and Aravind and believe me when I say my experience as VR fellow at Amrita was as good as theirs and even exceeded theirs in some aspects.

In Aravind, you get only steps in retina surgeries and that too, only after 1 year and then after finishing 2 yrs of fellowship, most of them join back as MOs (medical officers) to get further hands-on. But I got to learn and be proficient in the common retinal surgeries in just the 2 years I spent in Amrita. I even got to operate on an ROP baby which in LVP is not given until you have done Paediatric Retina fellowship (which comes after the 3 yr VR fellowship).

When I joined here, I expected I would learn mostly lasers and intravit injections, you know, that it wud be another proxy-medical retina program but that was not at all the case. VR fellowship in Amrita is a hidden gem. Very underrated. One of the best places to do VR fellowship in India, in my humble opinion.