Would be happy to answer any specific UT-Houston questions that you have.
In brief, UT-Houston is the second banana in town. If that bothers you, then look elsewhere. I have enjoyed it just fine and think the program is improving. We cover Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital, a county hospital (LBJ), and we do time at M.D. Anderson on the inpatient service with some limited clinic exposure there. CMHH is not a free-standing kid's hospital a la TCH. It does occupy the 7th - 10th floors of the large Hermann pavilion at Hermann. I guess we could throw in the well baby nurseries on the 5th and 6th floors, as well. We have a 20 bed PICU, a large NICU (current census ~110 babies). In the past year or so, the CV surgery service has reemerged with two active surgeons. We take care of the post op heart kids in the PICU. Babies transfer into the NICU now from feeder hospitals for the CV service. We have a growing liver and liver/small bowel transplant service that involves the gen pedi teams and PICU, as well. We seem to be getting a lot of mitochondrial disease children coming to visit as one of our former neuro fellows made those conditions her 'hobby'. LBJ is bread and better county stuff. It has a small pedi ER (ahem, 24 hr clinic), a basic & antiquated floor, an active WBN, and a surprisingly good NICU. Any high acuity stuff needs to transfer out as it has no PICU and nurse staffing (NICU excepted) makes you wonder if the kid would be better back at home.
We are taking about 20-22 categorical pedi residents (up from 18 my intern year) and 6 med-peds residents per year. We also take pedi neuro residents who do two years gen peds. All in all, we are getting bigger. The dean of the med school is the pedi dept chair, so you would hope we will hold a favored status in the med school. CMHH is advertising more aggresively around Houston, so business is picking up (not that it was slow). When I started, the call schedule kind of stunk all the way through. With a few more residents and some creative scheduling by the chiefs, this has improved and my third year looks very nice from a lifestyle perspective (compared to the third years when I was an intern). I'll shut up from now as this has not been brief! Good luck.
