Matching at a Competitive Peds program

[DaktaD]

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[GoSpursGo]

Honestly especially with P/F step 1 I think you’re in a very good spot. For these highly academic programs, if you could do more research that would be great, but it isn’t a must.

If it’s extremely important for you to match in Chicago, then you could consider an away rotation. But if you’re more looking for “a good program,” and Chicago would be nice but not essential, then I don’t think you need to pursue that.

 

[Get_Your_Turnip]

If you must match in Chicago, then I'd follow the advice of GoSpursGo as the two programs you list will undoubtedly get you to where you want after 3 years of training. As an aside, I'm currently a first-year fellow and would advise going to any programs just because they are ranked highly. Sure you will get good training at #1-20, but you could possibly get equally good training at #20-50 and beyond. I say this because I went to a program that from a ranking standpoint is not spectacular, but I received good training and had a fantastic work-life balance (imagine that for a resident!). I knew I wanted to do a fellowship, so I figured I'd work my butt off during fellowship with patient load and go to a residency that was not as clinically heavy, but had a strong research infrastructure to help me get the fellowship I wanted. In the end, I had plenty of time for hobbies and research and easily passed peds boards without too much additional studying - and this was true for others in my class as well. I'm only mentioning this because it's easy to get lost in the rat race during medical school, but for me, I can't imagine working 70-80 hours/week for 6 years in a row. I was very happy with my 50-55ish/week during residency. Lurie will work you hard and I suspect UChicago will do the same - really up to what you want to get out of residency.

 

[mvenus929]

I will also add that sometimes a lower ranked program will actually give you better training. Yes, if you go to a program like Cincinnati, you'll have a ton of opportunity to join in research projects, but you also won't have as much autonomy because there's likely a fellow between you and the attending. You may also not get to know the attendings as well for the same reason. These aren't necessarily the best programs for training a general pediatrician because they are so specialized, but may be good if you have your eye on a particular fellowship.

I went to a program with very few fellowships (which residents didn't interact with a ton), and knew all my attendings very well, which made it very easy for me to get letters for fellowship. I had to work a little harder to get research, but the research project I did was essentially equivalent to a fellow's project, which made it a little more impressive to fellowship PDs.