Hi all,
Long time follower of this thread with an interest in critical care. Was wondering what my chances are for landing a spot in peds Midwest programs, specifically the Chicago-land area. I am a US-IMG (Caribbean med) born and raised in the Chicago suburbs. I have mid 220's Step 1 and will be starting rotations next month in New York. Will be applying next fall for the 2017 match. Any advice is appreciated!
So as a critical care attending, my advice to you is to find a program (anywhere) that will actually let you do a lot while a resident. Find the place where residents are expected to take first crack on procedures not fellows (then when you go to fellowship, find the place where the residents sit around a watch while you do the procedure). Becoming clinically proficient will make you a better fellow. I've had friend from residency who went on to critical care fellowships at several very big name locations who have all said that if they had gone to residency in those locations, they might not have gone into critical care fellowships because the residents didn't get a chance to do much and they wouldn't have known they loved the PICU. Lastly, I think it was incredibly helpful to have done residency a place with fellows in several fields including PICU. Having those role models made the transition easier and they were great resources throughout the application/interview process for fellowship. So think broadly and look for programs that are going to meet your career goals.
As for the Chicago programs:
You will not be competitive at Northwestern/Lurie. Those scores are low for them and when coupled with your IMG status, probably won't get a second look. They have an absolutely HUGE number of applicants every year and so they will make automatic cuts to narrow their workload.
University of Chicago/Comer is a similar story although not to quite exactly the same degree. Chances are not good here.
Medical College of Wisconsin and Children's Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee is obviously close to Chicago and has a strong reputation. Definitely not as competitive but probably fits a "reach" program for you.
That's the bad news, and if a freestanding children's hospital is a must for you, then you're in a tough spot and need to figure your priorities.
The good news is that there are still lots of options within the Chicagoland area. The next level of competitiveness includes Rush and Loyola. These are children's hospitals within bigger hospitals. Rush will give you a more complete subspecialty assortment than Loyola, but I've known great doctors who came from both programs. I think your chances at either are still not entirely in your favor, but definitely worth an application and it wouldn't be surprising for you to land at either one.
Advocate Christ and Advocate Lutheran are listed as 2 programs in FREIDA, but to be honest I can't keep track which is which. One is in Oak Lawn (Hope Children's I believe) and the other is Park Ridge in the NW suburbs. I'm not sure what you're likely to find different between the two programs, but the one in Oak Lawn has a PICU fellowship and CT surgery program (for the time being) so from that standpoint is likely to have the better share of pathology.
University Illinois-Chicago and Stroger are smaller programs, both focused on underserved populations. Combined with Rush they're in the cluster of the Illinois Medical District. There is a lot of cross-pollination on the subspecialty side between those three hospitals in the subspecialties which is weird when I was interviewing for faculty jobs but probably less of a concern for residents. Stroger places high priority on global health if that's something you're interested in.
Last is Mt. Sinai, which I didnt' realize existed until checking the FREIDA database. I have no idea what sort of clinical experience you would get here but the lack of name recognition even within the Chicagoland area likely will make it hard to move on for fellowship.
Other places that are in the region would include Southern Illinois in Springfield, UI-Peoria which actually has quite a few subspecialties represented, American Family Children's in Madison, and St. Vincents/Peyton Manning Children's in Indianapolis. Riley Children's/IU is probably reasonable based on board scores, but your IMG status likely hurts you.
