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2024 Ophthalmology Statistics Released
- Thread starter medschoolaspirant
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I finished only a few years ago and the statistics are mind boggling. The average successful applicant applied to 85 residency programs and the average unmatched applicant also applied to 85. The matched applicant interviewed at 12 versus 4 for the unmatched. Wow! I do not remember how many I applied to but I think it was only about 25, all of which were carefully chosen. I later thought that I should have applied to 10 more. I interviewed at 15, more than the average of 12 last match season.
With that many applications, I would imagine that faculty members sorting through the applications are just throwing applications into piles (or clicking electronically). Maybe you get a few seconds of exposure time.
My guess is that if all applicants were forced at gunpoint to reduce their applications to half that or 42, the results would be the same. My guess is that if nothing different happened to everyone except one applicant forced at gunpoint to apply to 42, the results for that person would be the same. Of the approximately 25 that I applied to, I categorized half of them into group 1 (more likely) and half to group 2 (less likely). My interview rate for group one was definitely higher.
I later found out that the program that I went to asked one of their residents how I was. That resident was not my friend but knew me as we attended the same medical school. He said I was "ok" and a nice person, so it was not a glowing assessment but a decent one.
With that many applications, I would imagine that faculty members sorting through the applications are just throwing applications into piles (or clicking electronically). Maybe you get a few seconds of exposure time.
My guess is that if all applicants were forced at gunpoint to reduce their applications to half that or 42, the results would be the same. My guess is that if nothing different happened to everyone except one applicant forced at gunpoint to apply to 42, the results for that person would be the same. Of the approximately 25 that I applied to, I categorized half of them into group 1 (more likely) and half to group 2 (less likely). My interview rate for group one was definitely higher.
I later found out that the program that I went to asked one of their residents how I was. That resident was not my friend but knew me as we attended the same medical school. He said I was "ok" and a nice person, so it was not a glowing assessment but a decent one.
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I agree completely and the stats to me kinda show what I've been saying a lot. More applications do not increase your chances at a certain point. Interestingly the interview numbers seem about the same as in person (in person you need an average of 10 to match), and your first shot is your best shot typically. Y'all have to realize that with so many applications we don't have that much time to go through them, and we need a way to quickly stratify patients (Step 1 how I miss thee).
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What are y'all using now to stratify? Step 2 and AOA status?
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We do use them, that's all I can say. Can't give away the secret recipe.
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The data for Ophthalmology shows that it has become most competitve then any other speciality. No other speciality has match rate as bad as ophthalmology. Highest number of applicants ever. Highest number of unmatched ever.
eyeeye_captain
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Not a huge outlier to prior years. MD seniors stayed around 75%, grads made it to over 50%. Brutal year for DOs though - 32% for seniors and 37% if you add in the grads. Fewer seniors matching than IMGs (although put me in the camp that many of those IMGs are crazy good).
It’s a few years out from the AOA/ACGME merger now, but I wonder if shutting down more than half of the DO residencies is catching up or if it’s just one of those years. Also, jeez, that many residencies couldn’t/wouldn’t get certified? Bad sign.
It’s a few years out from the AOA/ACGME merger now, but I wonder if shutting down more than half of the DO residencies is catching up or if it’s just one of those years. Also, jeez, that many residencies couldn’t/wouldn’t get certified? Bad sign.
Brutal indeed when on average DOs do 5 to 6 away sub-i and only 1 out of 3 matched. The MDs do on average 1 to 2 aways sub-i and 3 out of 4 matched. Most if not all DOs dual apply so my guess is most are doing IM. IM programs know that they are a backup for ophtho so that could suck too.
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Any recent billing changes that increased the compensation for Ophthalmology? That's typically the biggest driver in competitiveness. I'm IM and totally clueless about the field.
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ophtho starting salaries are brutal. comparable to primary care in my metro
It is an excellent life style specialty with high earning potential after a couple of years of practice. Starting salary is certaintly not the incentive drawing people toward ophthalmology.
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Starting salaries are all over the place. Anywhere from $200k - $700k (retina). It’s the money down the road that is huge, plus the lifestyle and cool surgeries
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I would caution glorifying our field... the ophhthalmologist in the 1990s definitely did not help us by bragging how much $ they were making by doing quick and efficient cataract phacos... medicare/medicaid tends to cut reimbursements where they can afford to.
I would argue that all the published salaries for ophthalmologists (Doximity, medscape etc) are not very reliable for that same fact. Don't brag about your salary/income when it can only bring unnecessary and unwanted attention to you
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What I wrote here is directly from the AAO website (and various other job listings) when you research jobs, so it’s not hidden information. If our lawmakers want to gather this info from a few statements off of SDN, and then make decisions on our reimbursement, we are screwed. It’s more likely we’d be reported by a doc who is upset about the discrepancy in reimbursement between surgeons and primary care. Those are the ones bringing all the unwanted attention to us.
Plus, I hated when I was a student and no one wanted to ever discuss money. I had no idea who made more money than who….except neurosurgeons and heart surgeons. I knew they were paid well, but they also work their tails off too. So, if I can shed some light for some of the interested med students on here, then I’m going to try and help them out
Plus, I hated when I was a student and no one wanted to ever discuss money. I had no idea who made more money than who….except neurosurgeons and heart surgeons. I knew they were paid well, but they also work their tails off too. So, if I can shed some light for some of the interested med students on here, then I’m going to try and help them out
Cataract surgery does NOT take 10 minutes. It's much longer. I have spent a whole lot of time examining, explaining, pre and post op. Then during surgery, it's time before surgery, etc. During surgery, I've never done 10 minute cases. The level of mental involvement is 1000 times greater than an appendectomy, which is no piece of cake either (based on my internship experience).
In NYC, there are lawyers who charge over $1000/hour. Sometimes, normal thinking in the office generates this fee, not quick thinking / on your feet trial or deposition. Even ordinary lawyers in NYC charge $500 and they can easily make more work for themselves if they are not straight shooters.
In NYC, there are lawyers who charge over $1000/hour. Sometimes, normal thinking in the office generates this fee, not quick thinking / on your feet trial or deposition. Even ordinary lawyers in NYC charge $500 and they can easily make more work for themselves if they are not straight shooters.
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I'm working on something this year that will help this. I'll plan to share it here for feedback.
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I wouldn't worry about cms cutting ophthalmology further for doing 10 minute cataract surgery. The national payment is around 500... for surgery and 90 days od postoperative care. Once you factor in overhead, you get like a couple hundred for a vision restoring surgery and several postop visits. I used to get up early and drive out into the hinterlands to do people's surgeries. Not worth it anymore. Now if they were to upgrade...but that's not insurance or Medicare's business.I would caution glorifying our field... the ophhthalmologist in the 1990s definitely did not help us by bragging how much $ they were making by doing quick and efficient cataract phacos... medicare/medicaid tends to cut reimbursements where they can afford to.
I would argue that all the published salaries for ophthalmologists (Doximity, medscape etc) are not very reliable for that same fact. Don't brag about your salary/income when it can only bring unnecessary and unwanted attention to you
You can't survive for long in private practice as an anterior segment surgeon without doing femto, premium IOLs, etc. It's really necessary nowadays. I didn't train umpth-teen years to make the same salary as a PCP.
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This is such a goofy perspective. Imagine if in the olympics, the referees had the athletes for each sport compete, but didn't tell them the rules of the game or how the score is kept.
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Yeah I agree. The timing is all dependent to when someone is starting the clock. I shadowed a surgeon who said his typical case was <5 minutes. He didn't count the prep/drape time that someone else was doing nor the FLACS time which pre-created his incision. Oh, and his assistant closed the wound at the end and patched the eye as he was onto the next case.
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I absolutely disagree. If that's what you need to tell yourself to sleep at night after selling snake oil all day, so be it.
As a doc it's a cake walk to upsell patients on technology on which they have no idea about. Do you include in your femto discussion that there's no real visual benefit? Do you include the recent statement by AAO saying it's not cost-effective? Or do you have your staff trained on the good old "You wouldn't want to cheap out on your eyes and do this the old fashioned way!"
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Wanna be an ophthalmologist? Get used to it. *laughs in written and oral boards tears/resident clinic. Also to that point, it's just like olympic gymnastics - you know the basics of how things are gonna get graded, but good luck having a judge explain their score to the decimal to you. The rubric isn't the same for all places and can change every few years. All you can do be the best you can be, get whatever updated info you can, and don't bomb your interview.
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Anyone care to explain how out of 588 US Senior Registrations/ 463 Matching = 89 percent match rate? It should be a 79% match rate. Do they just exclude people who didn’t get interviews? Also, I think not having specifics about USMLE scores is quite strange. It seems things are becoming less transparent with time…
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With step 1 now P/F and Step 2 not something that has to be taken prior to the match, the statistics might be too murky to make anything useful out of it. As taking Step 2 before interviews become more common place hopefully we should start getting better statistics.
Yep, they only include individuals that submit rank lists in the match rate, thus inflating it by excluding folks that received no interviews.
eyeeye_captain
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I’ve made the same mistake before. It’s 89% of overall matched individuals that were US seniors. US seniors matched at a 75% rate, it’s farther down the stats sheet.
620 USMDs made an account and registered for SFMatch (paid $100)
595 USMDs got at least one interview and submitted a rank list
444 USMDs matched into a position
They don't count people who got 0 interviews or applied and got cold feet who didn't submit a rank list in the match stats. You also can't submit a rank list if you got 0 interviews.
A 75% match is medium competitive, compared to Derm/Ortho/ENT which are in the 60s% range.
Also, 64 IMGs got at least 1 interview for this speciality, which shows you that it's actually medium competitive. If this were something like Derm/Ortho/ENT, then it would be nearly impossible for an IMG to even get interviews.
You are 100% incorrect. Derm/ortho/ENT/plastics have lower match rates than ophthalmology. Please refer to the NRMP Charting Outcomes data.
What makes the ophtho match brutal is that of the 170+ allopathic seniors (plus osteopath also) who didn’t match, the majority of them were stellar applicants. So the fact that 75% of them did match doesn’t necessarily make Ophtho easier to get into than, say, ENT.
Quality, not quantity…
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Thanks for pointing I am incorrect. May be I lack understanding. Please educate me, where I am wrong here. My math below for comparison. I am going to do apple to apple comparision. registered applicants in Sf match is same terminology for number of applicant in nrmp (ones including zero iv)
Speciality. Total applicant. USMD applicants. USMD filled. Total Filled, %USMD. %Total
Ophthalmology. 917. 620. 444. 518. 71.60%. 56.4%
Orthopedic. 1492. 1008. 726. 915. 72.02%. 61.32%
Dermatology 939. 624. 405. 512. 64.9%. 54.52%
Otolaryngology. 513. 422. 339. 381. 80.33%. 74.26%
Formula- %USMD = USMD filled / USMD applicant * 100. %Total = Total filled / Total applicant * 100.
Dermatology is difficult to calculate as they are in PGY1. PGY2. And physician R positions. For calculation, I have taken largest population of derm applicant in pgy2.
Looks to me that Ophtho is definitely worse match rate than Ortho or ENT. If educate me, what am I missing here?
bergmistro
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Seems pretty accurate to me. It's hard to compare SF match stats to NRMP bc they use different variables. The published SF match stats only account for those matched compared to those who submit rank lists (ie received at least 1 interview) and discounts anyone who applied who didn't receive a single interview. In contrast, I believe NRMP uses number matched and total number who apply (irrespective of whether they received an interview or not).
Either way, all are competitive fields. Ophthalmology is the only one in that cohort where low starting salaries are standard which is frustrating, although obviously they increase significantly after a few years.
Please check your numbers, these are from the 2022 Charting Outcomes for USMDs. IMG application numbers are irrelevant because many apply for multiple years and get 0 interviews (I personally know of someone who has applied 4x).
Ortho: 574 USMDs matched, 871 submitted a rank list, 65.9% USMD match rate
ENT: 266 USMDs matched, 378 submitted a rank list, 70.3% USMD match rate
Derm: 348 USMDs matched, 459 submitted a rank list, 72.7% USMD match rate
All of these are lower than 75% figure released by SFMatch for Ophtho
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data I presented from NRMP and SF Match report is for 2024. Apple to apple. You are sending 2022 charts of nrmp. If you want to leave all applicants alone (us md. Us md senior, do, do senior, img), just compare us md senior. For 2024 I have presented those numbers as well. Ophtho - 71%. Ortho- 72% Derm - 65% ENT - 80%.
I see the point the point you are trying to make, and I will concede that ophtho match rates are low. What boggles my mind is that the starting salary for this specialty is low compared to the others on the list and yet it is still hyper competitive. In desirable metro areas, starting salaries are at 200-250k in 2024 right now.
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I think it’s because of the lifestyle compared to the others. Dermatology has a better lifestyle, but not many other specialties can compare to ophthalmology. Yes the starting salaries can be low but it teaches you to look ahead when you are home at a decent time every day and still making more than most docs
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I agree it is strange the starting salaries are especially low for ophthalmology, although I have heard more and more places offering 275-350k starting salaries. I have talked to multiple people about this. Some of the reasons are because of:
1) variation amongst ophthalmologist. There is a hugeeee difference between a new grad and an experienced surgeon. Will the new surgeon have a lot of complications? How fast will they be? How many patients are they able to see? Are they strange to interact with? My current practice hired someone 5 years ago who took 1 hour per patient and would do a full physical exam at times (including genital exam to rule out some uveitis diagnoses...) New grads do not really have bargaining power because they can theoretically be a liability.
2) It takes time to build up your practice and especially long to get credentialed at surgery centers and hospitals. The first 3-4 months I was barely making money/was basically seeing patients for free because it takes like 90 days to get credentialed in some insurance plans. I would say I got credentialed on alll the plans by 6 months in.
I would not worry too much about your initial salary. I was able to make 350k with bonus first year and 500k 2nd year without really doing much premium IOL conversion, femtosecond, or surgery center partnerships.
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I will be completely unaware or uneducated about compensation as rising pgy1 ophthalmology resident. Some of the attending and independant practitioner may be able to shed light on secret sauce for compemsation.
I would caution glorifying our field... the ophhthalmologist in the 1990s definitely did not help us by bragging how much $ they were making by doing quick and efficient cataract phacos... medicare/medicaid tends to cut reimbursements where they can afford to.
I would argue that all the published salaries for ophthalmologists (Doximity, medscape etc) are not very reliable for that same fact. Don't brag about your salary/income when it can only bring unnecessary and unwanted attention to you
I’d argue that the reimbursement went down mainly because more health care dollars went to pharma and administration. It’s a zero-sum game.
The cuts have happened for physicians across the board.
Mostly the blame lies with Medicare not being able to negotiate drug costs. But we also waste money on drugs that provide no visual benefit (ie the current GA drugs). The money to pay for those drugs needs to come from somewhere.
To save money, all patients over 65 should be sent to hospice and sedated until dehydrated....Until I reach 65, then the age should be extended 10 more years and extended 10 more years every 10 years.
The fact is that all single payer health care systems are underfunded. Politicians cannot adequately fund it. That's why every doctor needs to build a retirement war chest to pay for things themselves, if necessary. In some Canadian provinces, private practice of medicine is banned. You cannot do private cataract surgery except to out of province patients. If you have Covid, you are banned from getting Paxlovid unless you meet ridiculously stringent criteria. You cannot buy it privately unless you cross the border to the United States. Same for Ibrance for breast cancer.
