I wrote two personal statements, and there was no way to tell from my peds application that I would be doing peds-neuro (I received the same advice you did). My goal was to try to ensure I'd get invited to an interview. My applications to peds were otherwise very competitive, and I figured that I wanted to give myself a shot at convincing the programs that I was a good investment despite only being there for two years. At every interview, however, someone made a point of asking me if I was going to specialize, and I was honest each time. The last thing you want to do is end up at a program that will have a difficult time accommodating your leaving after 2 years. You'll just end up a pariah during your time in the general peds program. Also, after the child neuro match in January, I emailed the peds programs to let them know I had matched in neuro, and reinforce that I was still very interested in their program for my general peds training.
As far as West Coast, I did go out to OHSU to interview. They have a very new program, and OHSU's peds residency is pretty dead-set against accomodating their residents. It wasn't an issue for me, because I knew I wanted to do my 2 years of peds at DC Children's regardless of where I'd be going to do neuro (like I said, it's a great program).
Oh, and CHOP is really great about taking their child neuro residents into their peds residency. CHOP takes 4 child neuro residents a year, and in their PGY-1 peds class right now are all four of their neuro folks, as well as I believe a resident who will be leaving CHOP to do neuro elsewhere.
I'll post more if and when I remember it.... now that the Match has come and gone, it feels like all of that interviewing and applying was ages ago.
- Erick