Part 6: KOL reflections on what they would say to retina fellows

Editor's note: This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Dilsher S. Dhoot, MD: I think my advice for residents will be to remain motivated in whatever it is that you're doing and pursue your passion, and it's always good to read the journals and stay up to date on everything you're doing and always put patient care first.

Katherine Talcott, MD: Yeah, I would say the most important thing that I think you can do, beyond learning the clinical piece and surgical piece of medicine, is just really forming good relationships with those around you, with your peers and with your mentors. I don't think that I realized at the time, but retina is really a small field, and you're going to be relying on those relationships and those mentors sort of for the rest of your career. And so really invest time into that. You have a lot of stuff going on, but that's time well spent.

Alan J. Franklin, MD, PhD: I think the advice, and it's non-ophthalmic, is if you enjoy what you're doing, it's not really work. So if you don't enjoy it, you're going to go for a work-life balance. If you do enjoy it, you'll work harder and be rewarded. But I don't feel like I particularly do. There are some things I do during the day that I classify as work and other things that I do that I classify as rewarding, and so that makes the day go easier.