ATul Jain, MD
Contributing Editor
Visiting the Jules Stein Eye Institute is akin to making a trip to Mecca. The sheer magnitude of the 2 immense Italian marble structures that comprise the institute are breathtaking and by far the most visually stunning of all eye institutes across the country. There is an air of academe and a bustle of a busy university, and by busy I mean very busy. The weather is fantastic year round and the location is pristine (between Beverly Hills and the Santa Monica beach). Faculty seem to exude a bit more of the east coast vibe of hierarchical professionalism than the typical surfer dude attitude typically associated with California.
The facilities at Stein are top notch with all the modern equipment and technology at your fingertips. The operating rooms are located in the eye institute and separate from the general hospital facilities. While the facilities at Stein are top notch, a fair amount of time in the fellowship is spent at the 2 county hospitals affiliated with UCLA – Harbor and Olive View (Harbor is about 22 miles south while Olive View is about 25 miles north), which are very busy with only limited resources. The fellow spends 2 three month rotations at each county hospital over the two year fellowship. The county clinics are very busy and resident run, the role of the fellow is more like that of an attending to assist in the management of the more complex patients and surgical care. The volume at UCLA is quite high; fellows typically perform about 600 primary surgical cases over the fellowship. The fellow is the primary surgeon on all county cases in addition to cases generated from the Friday afternoon fellow clinic at Stein. The call tends to be very busy, with 4 total fellows (2 each year), 3 are on call any given weekday…one covers Harbor, another Olive View, and the third the VA and Stein. Weekday call is Monday – Thursday, with a single fellow covering all hospitals from Friday – Sunday. In addition to patient care the fellow is responsible for a lot of the resident retina teaching and is expected to participate in research activities.
The interview day is split into either a morning or afternoon interview group, the non-interviewing group spends time with the fellows to ask questions and go over the program as well as tour Stein (there is no tour of the other facilities). There are about 4 interviews generally with 2 faculty (the section chief interviews one on one). Breakfast is with the other applicants, and lunch is with all applicants and faculty.
While offering some of the best weather and optimal location of all fellowships across the country, the Jules Stein fellowship is so busy that the ability to enjoy the location and weather might be very limited. The fellowship is very hard working and LA traffic can make commuting to the county hospitals a 60 – 90 minute trek in each direction. On the upside, fellows always have at least one, and generally more, hard working residents to get patients worked up and prepared for them on call. There is a lot of resident – fellow interaction and teaching opportunities, high surgical volume in which patients are actually the fellow’s own, not shared attending patients, and a prestigious well recognized institution’s name on your diploma.
Overall, Stein is a well recognized retina fellowship that allows for immense autonomy and great training, but it is not for the faint of heart, as this is also one of the hardest working fellowships across the country with something like 200 call nights each of the 2 years. Word on the street is if one survives the Stein experience, there is nothing retina-related that can walk through the door that the graduate cannot handle.
Have a question or comment on this article? Use the “Comment” link below to leave your thoughts, and the author will respond.