Hi BigRedBeta, thank you for your help! For U Chicago, I had heard rumors that they recently lost key faculty and had to shut down a fellowship or two. Do you have any thoughts on the trajectory of the program and how it is perceived? Is it well-regarded?
Don't know the specifics. "Key" faculty is relative, and in an established program like that, I'm not sure how much of a difference it would really make. Is it a beloved teacher? Is it someone taking millions of extramural funding somewhere else? Is it residency program leadership? Each of those possibilities is a very different beast. A well liked teacher retiring, not much you can do, those things happen. Loss of a great researcher is probably not going to impact a resident unless you were really hoping to get into that person's lab. Change in residency program leadership - much bigger deal but could be a positive or a negative depending on how things were going.
There's also an element of history with the Chicago children's hospitals - it's common for groups to switch allegiances between the facilities. I think it's been a while since it last happened, but there are times in which multiple faculty members have gone from UofC to Northwestern, and vice versa - the most notable was in the late 90's or early 00's when the entire liver transplant team moved to Northwestern/Lurie, but there are other instances.
Same sort of thing in terms of relativity for shutting down a fellowship. Depends on which fellowship to some degree and obviously if you think you are going into that field, and also why they shut it down. No offense intended, but losing an endocrine or behavioral fellowship is not the end of the world. Not having a PEM or PICU or NICU fellowship is potentially a much bigger deal depending on what it means for resident coverage or education.
Again, this is context specific to UChicago, which I consider well regarded both nationally and in the city. A smaller or less stable residency program could suffer far more severely with the same losses. And I'm also being specific for resident education/experience - some of these losses could be super detrimental for fellows, but not matter one iota for residents.
As for perception of UofC - it's generally believed to be more diverse than NW/Lurie, much stronger in terms of advocacy, stronger in public health and care for the underserved. Not that Lurie doesn't do well in many of those areas, but that's the perception. My own feelings are that UofC probably produces better general pediatricians than Lurie, but that Lurie carries a stronger name recognition for those planning to go on to fellowship.
Bump. Got interview at Lutheran, Loyola and uic. Appreciate any inputs
Loyola - not free standing, small program so you need to be aware of what that means for your education. Nice people - very strong PICU faculty in particular. There seems to be a lot of growth of the medical campus in general but not sure how much of that is touching the peds department.
Advocate - kind of a different place compared to the other options in the city. My roommate in med school ended up there (technically not really by choice), but did well enough there. Knowing her, my assumption is that she did well there in spite of the program not because of it. I think the program wants to be more like UofC and NW in a delusional sort of way, but won't ever reach that stature due to location within the city and the lack of that sort of research university backing. Probably does a decent job of putting their grads into the pediatric clinics throughout the suburbs (not that there's anything wrong with that). Quite honestly, looking at their website and where grads have gone on to do fellowship, it's shocking how few of their grads end up in fellowships at Lurie or UofC.
UIC - a couple of years ago (2015) faculty was in complete disarray, department chair was ousted rather hostilely by the Dean. Chair's behavior had driven multi-year exodus of faculty. Not sure how well they've recovered in the interim as I've moved away, would assume things are slightly better but only because they were nearing rock bottom. As a state institution, always have to be a little weary of Illinois state finances and how that will impact the facility though there seemed to be a belief when I interviewed for a faculty job that there was no way the state legislature would allow UIC to fall apart. Not sure if that was wishful thinking, hubris, or something else.
