Pearls for Applying to Vitreoretinal Fellowships

By Rahul Khurana, MD

Applying for Vitreoretinal Fellowships can be intimidating as it is a competitive process. Here are some pearls for putting together a strong application for a retina fellowship.

Don’t be Preoccupied with the OKAP exam. Throughout our training, standardized tests have been essential to move to the next step i.e., SATs for college, MCATS for medical school, and USMLE Step scores for residency. The natural tendency is that OKAP scores must be similar for fellowship. This is far from the truth. Although OKAP scores have value, they are NOT a major metric used for matching for fellowship. In fact, when I applied, only one program out of ten even asked for them!

Support from your Retina Faculty. This is essential for matching for a fellowship. More importantly, you will have great mentors for you after training. If you are interested in retina, meet with the faculty early during residency and begin to develop a relationship. When you are applying, their letters of support will carry the most weight; and their phone calls can help seal the deal. Retina is a very small field and most of the fellowship programs know the faculty of each of the residencies.

Research can be very helpful. Even though residency is busy, research can enrich your experience and make you a better clinician by developing critical thinking skills. You can easily get involved with a clinical project such as a chart review or case series. It allows you to interact with your faculty and further nurture that relationship. Research can also allow you stand out from the rest and shows a more genuine interest in the field.

Be a strong resident. What does that mean? Retina Programs want these qualities in their future fellows: hard working, honest and being a team player that gets along with others. In fact, employers want these traits as well. Fellowship programs have been known to call anyone who knows you from residency including chairmen, program directors and faculty; and those are traits they value.

Use your Local Resources. Talk to your alumni and senior residents who have matched in retina. They will give you personalized advice for each program on who to be mentored under, who to work with, which programs to apply to, etc. No reason to reinvent the wheel each time.

Retina is a wonderful field that is interesting, rewarding, challenging and exciting with many more therapies on the horizon. Good luck with the application process, and I hope you find these tips helpful.