Hey guys! I'm a current 1st year peds resident at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.
From my experiences on the interview trail and my experiences from my 1st 2 weeks at my program, I can tell you a little bit about the difference between hospital and school-based.
Most of my friends that are at school-based peds programs are only doing typodont work/classroom stuff initially, whereas I already have a full schedule of patients. I've found that most school-based programs will have official courses, sometimes have exams, and do a lot more didactic stuff. Also, from my experiences, many of the school-based do not have as much clinic time, possibly due to lack of patients at certain programs (this isn't always the case, but many of the ones that I looked at will see about 1/2 or less of the # of patients that I will see in a day). At my program, we don't have official courses, but a lot of the learning is self-motivated. We do read journal articles/papers related to things we are doing clinically. We have lecture seminars a few days a week before we see our patients for the day. I think the nice thing about my program is that all of the learning is geared towards practical things that you are actually going to be able to use directly clinically. Many times we base our discussions on interesting cases that we have in the clinic. I can tell you that in the 2 weeks I've been there, I've already seen a countless number of children with very rare diseases and syndromes, I've already been in the OR, and I've already done oral conscious sedation on patients. In my 1st weekend on-call, I already saw 5 cases of facial cellulitis/dental abscess and 2 trauma cases.
Personally, I'm the type of person who learns best from seeing/doing things instead of just reading it from a book, so this program fits me really well. However, it's not for everyone. You definitely have to be a self-motivated learner and be willing to work hard and put in a lot of hours. However, it's very rewarding, in my opinion.
I'm definitely not trying to discourage anyone from going to a school-based program. School-based programs fit certain people very well. Some residents who have families and might want a more predictable schedule with a low amount of on-call time might be a perfect fit for a school-based program. For instance, my days are very unpredictable in terms of what time I might be leaving and we work long hours. For me, it's not an issue, but for those with families, that would be difficult. Also, some people like to have more didactic training before trying things hands-on with a patient and like things to be a little bit slower-paced clinically and there's definitely nothing wrong with that!
Like someone mentioned earlier, in general, hospital programs pay well, but you work really hard for that paycheck! School-based programs might pay some, but usually not as much as hospital-based. Some school programs actually make you pay tuition and don't give you a stipend. It really varies.
Bottom line- like everyone has said, explore the programs and try to find some that fit your wants/needs in terms of what kind of experience you're looking for in a residency program! They are all somewhat similar due to the minimum requirements from the AAPD to be accredited, but beyond meeting those minimum requirements, they will vary greatly.
Hope this helps! 🙂
