PICU vs NICU

[SoFla Dad]

My pl2 kid is starting to plan for fellowship so I was helping with research. It'll definitely be nicu or picu but they had some questions; how do they compare as far as fellowship structure, job structure, and attending salary? What are the most relevant pros and cons for both? @oldbearprofessor @Perrotfish and anyone else who has information? I couldn't find any old threads that helped. Thank you.

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[MEN2C]

• You can find jobs in both - especially if you're flexible in location, but the job market is better for NICU in general (and more variety in practice settings given how many NICUs there are compared to PICUs).
• Salary will depend on PP vs academic and other things, both will be on the higher end of pediatric specialties. There are PP PICU jobs as well, though not as many as NICU.
• Fellowship structure is similar, though PICU usually has a few more months service time. But both will involve service times that include days, nights, weekends, holidays, etc. Service weeks will frequently be ~80 hours/week and non service weeks may have some calls (from once every 4 to once every 8-9 days)
• Pros/Cons: up to you. I liked both and was torn. In the end, for me, I decided I only wanted to deal with babies. Didn't much care for the diagnoses in the PICU, although I did like the acuity. My goal is to work in a high acuity NICU with a large proportion of term or near term babies (eg a referral center), preferably in an "open" NICU (one that admits kids from home below a certain age or with certain diagnoses)

 

[SurfingDoctor]

Fellowship structure is program dependent. Salaries are comparable. Job opportunities are more in NICU because as mentioned there are more NICUs. There are also more private practice gigs for that reason as well. The real difference is in population age and associated pathologies. Either you like taking care of only babies and the problem associated with being born too early or with congenital problem that compromise life at minute one of birth or you don’t.

 

[SoFla Dad]

Thank you both.

 

[oldbearprofessor]

My pl2 kid is starting to plan for fellowship so I was helping with research. It'll definitely be nicu or picu but they had some questions; how do they compare as far as fellowship structure, job structure, and attending salary? What are the most relevant pros and cons for both? @oldbearprofessor @Perrotfish and anyone else who has information? I couldn't find any old threads that helped. Thank you.

Fellowship and salary are similar between them, although as noted the opportunities for higher salary are greater in neo due to more private practice. But there is currently plenty of private practice in PICU. I would generally say that there is more basic and translational research in fellowship in NICU, but again, this is not an absolute. Job structure is dependent on route of practice and that is a bigger factor than which field.

So, as noted, it really comes down to what you want to do. PICU has a lot of folks doing an extra year (or two?) in cardiac intensive care. In general, the day to day pace of a big PICU is more intense than the day to day pace of a NICU, but drama is frequent at both as are both great and bad outcomes. PICU docs take care of infants < 6 months all the time, NICU docs uncommonly take care of kids older than 6 months (not never). NICU patients usually have long stays and therefore relationships with families are different. Both fields are "team" efforts. A NICU or PICU doc who can't work well with all staff will be miserable.