Ophthalmology Senior Dinner and Trauma Course

Hi all! This is actually Sam posting about a few things that happened towards the end of residency. Here are some photos when Dr. Nikhil Godbole invited all the third year residents to his house prior to our graduation. We had a very nice BBQ and enjoyed seeing the grill that Nik put together himself. 

During our visit, it started to rain. And then it rained some more! Eventually, we noticed water coming into the house from through the garage and back door. So, our dinner party soon became a "dump water out from the Godbole's home" party. Good times!

I guess we saw a frog while we were dumping water. I don't quite remember that! 

Kids of course love playing in the water, despite it being cold and wet outside. Here's Eden "helping" with the water removal from the driveway:

One of the best parts of wrapping up our residency was handing off our chief responsibilities to the new Chief Residents. Bryant and I took Fred Nelson (far left, new Air Force chief resident) and Hal Blegen (middle left, new Army chief resident) to lunch (although I'm pretty sure we all paid for ourselves) to discuss the program and residents. We also handed down the chief gifts, which have been handed down from chief to chief over the years (a pocket watch for the "time keeper" chief resident, and the gavel for the "judge" chief resident). I definitely miss these guys!

In May, we ended up flying out to Washington, D.C. where all of the 2nd and 3rd year residents attended the Ocular Trauma Course (hosted at the Walter Reed Medical Center) while the 1st year residents held down call with Dr. Valentin. Most of us stayed at the Navy Lodge, and it was great! 

The course itself was held at the USUHS campus in Bethesda, across the street from the NIH. When we weren't in lectures, cutting on cadaver heads, or practicing globe repairs, we had a great time exploring the city and seeing the sights.

Lincoln Memorial:

Washinton Monument:

White House:

And it took 3 years, but we finally did it! We got a photo of all of my class together for the first time. From left to right: Nathan Davidson (Army, staying at the ISR in San Antonio), me, Bryant Giles (Army, currently stationed in Tennessee), Tatiana Zanganeh (Air Force, my fellow pre-select colleague, currently half-way done with her Peds fellowship at CHOP), Adam Altman (Air Force, currently stationed in Dayton, Ohio), and Charlie Stevens (Air Force, currently stationed in Alaska).

This is probably the best shot of all of us! We sure had some great times together, but I am definitely glad that residency is over!

We went out for some Ethiopian food for dinner... Not my favorite type of food. But eating with my hands was definitely a new experience! (It felt weird during the whole COVID era)

Charlie and I went on a run together a few times, along with some of the other residents. I wanted to see the Washington, D.C. temple, so I decided to run there one morning. I didn't realize I was so out of shape! I had to walk half the time, but Charlie was patient with me. We had a great time together.

The of course, before leaving D.C., we had to hit up the National Mall. The best part was the free Zoo. It was great! Charlie and I went and looked at the animals together before catching our flights back home.

Fellowship Match

Hi everyone! Kiley always does an amazing job of keeping our blog up-to-date, but we thought it would be best if I write about the fellowship match this year and announce where we will be moving for the next couple years of our journey together. Sorry about the overall lack of photos and my wordy story-telling, but here it goes!

As you may know, in December 2019 I was selected by the Air Force to complete a 2-year, fully funded vitreoretinal surgery fellowship in a civilian program of my choice. That meant that I would have to apply to civilian programs in 2020 for a 2021 start date. Although I was nervous about the match, I had great mentors that helped me through the process. One recurring thing I heard was that I would definitely match, so I shouldn't worry about applying to too many places. Since the military was sponsoring the fellowship, I would be free for any program that would take me. Who wouldn't want a completely free, fully-fledged ophthalmologist on their staff for two years?

Based on these factors, and seeing as I was a relatively competitive applicant, I decided to apply to eight programs total (the maximum number that came with the standard application fee; any additional programs would cost me extra!). All of them were fairly competitive. These were the programs that I was considering:

-Associated Retinal Consultants/Beaumont Health, Royal Oak, MI

-University of Colorado, Denver, CO

-Retina Group of Washington/Washington Hospital Center/Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

-Wilmer Eye Institute/Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, MD

-Duke Eye Center, Durham, NC

-Casey Eye Institute/Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR

-Wills Eye Hospital, Philadelphia, PA

-Moran Eye Center, Salt Lake City, UT

Because of COVID, the San Francisco Match was delayed, and the entire timeline was pushed back around a month (although the actual match date, 12/17/2021, stayed constant). That meant that by the time I heard back from programs about whether I was given an interview, it was already too late to apply to other programs. I ended up getting interviews to only four of the eight programs where I applied: University of Colorado, Moran, Casey, and RGW. Each of the interviews was virtual, and I felt they all went very well. However, it was still nerve racking because each location was only accepting one or two applicants this year, and the other applicants were all incredible! Additionally, all the interviews were completed on Zoom, which made it challenging to really get a great feel for the programs or feel like I could sell myself as an applicant.

Finally, the match week arrived. Kiley and the kids were spending the week in Albuquerque since my leave request got denied by the Air Force (too many travel restrictions for their liking), and I was working at the VA hospital on my cataract surgery rotation. I had completed 5 of my 6 surgeries for the day when I got the following email from the SF Match:

It was very discouraging to receive this bad news, especially since I had felt a strong confirmation that I was doing the right thing for me and my family. However, I knew that my Heavenly Father has been guiding my life up to this point, so there was no reason to worry about the future. I gritted my teeth, held back the tears of frustration, and moved on with my day, finishing my last cataract surgery (it went great, by the way) and then discussing the news with my attending physician at the VA. She offered me a lot of support and complemented me on my surgeries, saying that, "Even if retina surgery doesn't work out for you, you are already a very competent cataract surgeon. You will do great no matter what!" And it's true, I love cataract surgery as well! But I was still rather sure that I wanted to do vitreoretinal surgery. 

After that, I received multiple texts from my mentors asking where I had matched, and I shared with them the disappointing news. I immediately received an outpouring of love and support from all of them. My program director, Dr. Gary Legault, was incredible. He immediately called me and said, "I know that they will post vacancies tomorrow, but the scramble happens right now. You are released from all academic obligations. Go home, contact every single program in the country, and ask about openings at their program. Let them know that you are sponsored by the government. Even if they have matched an applicant, they may be willing to create a spot for you!"

I gathered a list of programs and sent the following email to each of the program directors/program coordinators:

"My name is Sam Hobbs, and I am a current PGY-3 applying for the vitreoretinal surgery fellowship match. I have been selected by the Air Force to complete fellowship training from July 2021 - June 2023. This means that my salary, health insurance, and everything else will be paid for by the military.

"Regrettably, after applying to the SF Match this cycle, I did not match. I do not know if you have matched a fellow, but I would love to talk to you more about possibly training at your facility. My CV is attached. If you have been thinking about expanding your program, this would be a great opportunity to start.

"Please let me know your thoughts. I look forward to hearing from you."

While I emailed programs, my retina mentor (Dr. Paul Drayna, the one I will be replacing when I finish my training) started going down the list of programs and making personal phone calls to each one. In less than an hour after starting to send emails, I received a phone call from Dr. Steven Schwartz, Chief of Retina at the UCLA Jules Stein Eye Institute. He told me, "We may have a place for you. Before you accept any offer from other programs, wait until you hear back from us! It will be the hardest two years, we will work you more than you have ever worked before, but you will come out with the best training in the country."

After that, I was surprised about the number of programs that reached out. Many offered me a medical retina or uveitis spot (including the Mayo Clinic), which I had to turn down since I was required to do surgical retina. The Cleveland Clinic, Loma Linda University, University of Louisville, and several private practices (in San Diego, Philadelphia, Louisiana, etc) all offered me positions at their institutions. I also received phone calls from the programs where I interviewed, including Casey and Moran, where the program directors and other faculty started calling all around the country to find me spots. Dr. Legault was also contacting programs and found several programs who were willing to create spots for me. It was incredible to see the love and outreach of the ophthalmology and retina communities during my time of trials. Although I wouldn't recommend not matching, I was actually very grateful for the experience and for the love and support that I felt during that time.

Finally, I heard back from UCLA. Dr. Legault had called them, and although I have no idea what told them, when Dr. Schwartz called me he said, "Your program director gave me a call and sealed the deal. If you want the spot, it's yours. Our program director, Dr. Krieger, will be calling you in a few minutes for your interview." Sure enough, Dr. Krieger set up a Zoom meeting with me a few minutes later, and it was short and to the point. I didn't even have a chance to put on a suit - I was still wearing my scrubs from earlier. After a short chat, Dr. Krieger said, "I have a good feeling about you, and I think this will work out well." I agreed, and I accepted a position at UCLA for my training!

The match this year was strange. It seems like a number of people went unmatched (although I haven't seen the statistics yet). I have a feeling that a lot of it was due to COVID. All the interviews were virtual, which made it a lot less expensive to interview at multiple programs. I doubt that people turned down interviews, which means that the top applicants had their choice at any program and left many without the interviews that they wanted. Interestingly, the same thing happened at UCLA, where they decided to interview only a handful of applicants, which is probably why one of their spots went unfilled in the traditional match. It makes me wonder how this will influence the match process in years to come!

I'm not sure why things happen like they do, but I know that the hand of God is in it all. I had actually looked into UCLA as a program to train at, since it is consistently one of the top 5 in the country, but we (Kiley) decided against applying there since the cost of living is so high for a large family. I also doubt that I would have gotten an interview there even if I had applied in the first place (given their very selective interviewee pool). However, we are getting more and more excited about our prospects in LA! Not only will we be getting a more generous housing allowance (around $3500 per month), we will also be making ophthalmologist pay in the Air Force. Although it's not a ton, it will more than suffice for a comfortable living in LA for the next couple years, especially if we rent out our home here in San Antonio. Joey and Eli are excited to live near the beach, and Joey keeps telling me about all the creatures he wants to discover in the tide pools. I'm sure we are going to have an amazing adventure the next two years!

Summer 2020

We managed to have a fun and little busy summer. Sam started working (😩) as well as starting his chief resident duties. June was pretty much filled with that. In addition, he poured hoooouuurs into the event known as the Eye Ball. It's the Senior resident's graduating celebration in the program and he worked really hard to make it enjoyable for people present and attending over zoom. Here is a link to all the amazing videos Sam created. Here is also a photo of the graduating class since I can't find any photos of the actual event. It was soooo awesome. The food was great, the videos were all entertaining, and I didn't really hear a single complaint. Some people even told Sam it was the best Eye Ball they've attended. I've only attended two but this one was for the books, that's for sure!

Other than that June was a little quiet at home. I was starting to get into a little bit of a depressive state with Sam being gone and stuck at home with our spawn day in and day out. But we survived! I think Eli had a little bit of depression for a while too because all he wanted to do all day was build with blocks or legos. When we did have an activity outside of the house he didn't want to go. Luckily I can say he is his very happy self again and all is well. Here is where we found Eli one day when he disappeared for a little bit:

We found him under our bed asleep!

His favorite isolation activity.

We decided to try out Sea World for the 4th and had fun being out of the house!

 

We were able to stay for the beautiful firework show and ride rides (Eli loves them).

Eden loves wearing masks. Just maybe not on her face!

I found more photos of Emily. Here you can see her dewlap pretty well.  

Look how green she looks in this picture! I love how green anoles get.

I spoiled Sam with this chocolate berry nut cake. My baking is really hit or miss, and although it doesn't look completely professional, this is one of the best cakes I pulled off!

Sam's birthday meal for good measure. Happy 31st Sam!

Found a little toad on one of our walks.
Joey wanted to keep it, but no more pets!

Here is a picture of the day we released Emily. It was so sad and we really didn't want to, but it was best considering the cricket shortage in the stores and not finding good alternatives. Hope you are doing well out there, girl!

Can you find her 😉?

 That concludes this post. We celebrated Eden's birthday in Albuquerque, where we went the very beginning of August. But that's for another time!

Pre-Christmas Celebrations

Here is a post on all the Christmas happenings before we made a trip to Albuquerque to celebrate Christmas day. We started the Holiday Season with my participation in the San Antonio Messiah. Sam and I did this last year and it is just so awesome to be a part of an orchestra again. It was stressful last year though because we had to find babysitters every week and I had a baby to take care of during rehearsals. Because of that I decided not to do it and Sam was going to do it this year instead, but this is why it switched:

Sam and his fellow second Ophthalmology residents were invited to take a course in Florida that same weekend. Now I would have Sam blog about this trip but he barely has time to do anything these days. So you will get a very, very watered down version of this trip.

Bausch and Lomb is a company that makes intra-ocular lens ophthalmologists use for their surgeries and paid for Sam to come tour their facilities. Although he was in a lot of classes for the weekend he did get to have some fun with this co-residents.

Pirate ship in the sea.

A fortress of some sort?

The amazing meals he got to eat. Meanwhile I ate Mac and Cheese all weekend.

All but one of his fellow second-years.

Yep. I was pretty jealous.

Like I said, I was able to do the Messiah this year. Sam stayed home Sunday evenings while I rehearsed so all I had to do was find babysitters for the weekend of the performances. A sweet girl in our ward took care of the kids and was very grateful! Sometimes it is hard for me to go out and do things because I always need to find babysitters and it stresses me out, haha. 

Ever since Sam was a medical student he was interested in the Retina aspect of ophthalmology. We were unsure if we would be able to do Retina in the Air Force because they would first have a need for a doctor before he would be allowed to do a Retina fellowship and he would have to be selected if there were more than one person to apply. Well, the stars aligned because a fully-funded spot was offered around the time Sam would graduate, and Sam was the only ophthalmologist that we knew of that applied. We found out in December that Sam got the spot! That's half the battle, though because now he has to apply to different programs and match into one. Some of our top choices are in Michigan, Utah, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Congrats Sam! Wonder where we will end up next!

The next weekend was the ward Christmas party. The Singles' Group in our ward took over and they made it super fancy! Sandwiches for lunch, a Christmas program, Christmas games, and of course a visit from the big man. I think the boys enjoyed themselves. We also performed in a Sing-A-Long the following day but no pictures, of course. Just had to show up for an early rehearsal with our kids in tow and find someone to sit with our kids!

Reindeer toss.

They had someone taking photos but since the photos never made it back to us here is Sam's phone picture. Eli asked for a "Mighty Airplane Jet Got Ryder" and Joey asked for the Mighty Twins (both Paw Patrol...I CAN'T ESCAPE!)

I mentioned in a post or two that Eli joined an MDO program. Well, he didn't like it much. It quickly became a battle to get him to go (his teacher said he was fine after I left). He never wanted to go due to the scheduled nap time, but he did fall asleep half the time! Maybe I should designate a nap time in my own home, ha. Well, it costs money and if he didn't like it we weren't going to push it. So for his very last day they had a Christmas program. Eli was mopey during the performance but he did like his book from the book exchange! Here's Eli with Miss Ally. Hopefully he will do better when he starts preschool next school year.

I decided last minute to do a photoshoot for an ornament I was making for Grandparents (and myself!) Right after Joey got out of school I got everyone in nice clothes, grabbed my nice camera, and ran over to a building right across the street from Joey's school. Sadly the kids were not cooperative (Eden cried a lot) and the camera died. Whoops. So we ran back home so I could grab my phone to take photos and Eden a snack. The kids were so much happier thank goodness. I actually got the best photos of the three of them together ever and I didn't even need to photoshop! Yay!

The very last weekend before Christmas I spent the entire Saturday prepping for our trip to Albuquerque with laundry, mowing the lawn and last minute Christmas prep. Sam decided to have some fun with the kids while I busied myself and took them to McDonald's and Sea World. Serious brownie points from the kids! Eli loves the rides, total opposite of Joey, by the way. He was finally tall enough to ride by himself on the kiddy roller coaster and he loved it!

They also enjoyed seeing these familiar characters. Joey has been watching classic Christmas cartoons at school and comes home and tells me all about Frosty and sings the Rudolf song. Sweet boy!

We would have head off earlier to Albuquerque but we participated in our Ward's Christmas program and I thought it was phenomenal. Again, had to find someone to watch our kids (sigh) but the same girl from the messiah volunteered to sit with them and all was well. Then we went home and left for our hometown! Whew, what a month!