Looking at the ped surg match thread, people have mentioned the importance of coming from a good gen surg program with a childrens hospital and ped surg fellowship, which echoes what I've heard elsewhere. I'm close to the end of residency interviews and have 5-6 programs that I loved, all of which are top programs with great childrens hospitals- except one. I really really liked UVA, but it has no childrens hospital and only 2 peds surgeons on faculty. If not for this, it would be one of my top ranks. Does anyone know more about how UVA does in the ped surg match, or if this should be a big factor in my decision making? While I'm keeping an open mind in terms of what I might go into, I feel strongly enough about ped surg that I want to go train at a program that will, at the very least, not close doors to that.
I may be biased because I want to do cardiac surgery but I LOVED UVA. If not for the geographical constraints of my fiance I would have ranked them number 1. I don't know about the specifics of thier pediatric surgery progam but I can't imagine that coming from a general surgery program that strong would close any doors at all.
Brad Rodgers and Gene McGahren are both superb surgeons and well connected. Rodgers used to run the peds surgery match - by hand on his kitchen table. My thought, from having gone to UVa as a med student and matching in surgery somewhere else is that you are FAR better off to go somewhere without a peds fellowship ... which generally means no kids hospital as well. I think UVa is the sweet spot - busy peds surgery program doing the full volume of peds surgery. (CT included - which will bring in a lot of general peds cases) But you don't have any fellows to steal cases and hog the attendings attention. The PGY4 resident is scrubbing all the big cases with these guys. Bottom line - UVa's a great program, a great peds experience, and a great launchpad for a peds surgery career.
http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/surgery/fellowshipsofchiefs.cfm Looks like they've sent 11 people into peds surg over the last 25 years. For most of that time, UVa was a 4/yr program, so it looks like they're placing about 10% of their grads into peds surg.
Probably not enough cases to support a fellowship and a residency. Although it may well just be a personal preference of Rodgers and McGarhen. Even if it's teh former, I'd still say that's a strength for those interested in peds surgery
UVa's a great residency program. Drs. Rodgers and McGahren are similarly great to work with, big names in peds, and well-connected nationally. Recently I think fewer of the residents coming out of UVa have been interested in peds surg, so I can't speculate how well people coming from UVa would match. Historically, however, residents from UVa wanting to go into peds went into peds. The volume of peds cases is probably not quite high enough to support a fellow AND keep the experience a quality one for the PGY4's. Luckily the resident experience is important to the attendings at UVa and they wouldn't do anything to negatively affect it, even if that meant not having a fellow. All of that being said, I've always heard it said that residents with a peds fellowship and children's hospital have a better shot of matching into fellowship. I have no idea how true this is though. And to dynx's comment, anyone interested in CT would be insane not to consider UVa. It has one of the top CT fellowships in the nation.
