So I suppose I should speak up given as how this is my beloved medical school. The Peds people at UM are amazing - including attendings, fellows, and residents. As a whole, the attendings are incredibly smart, incredibly friendly people who really give a great character to the program. The fellows essentially act as attendings, and are a great source of education/teaching. The residents are some of the best people in the hospital -- most all med students, even those who don't wanna go into peds, say that the Peds residents are some of the best people to work with. Smart, happy, fun... they take their work seriously, but they also cherish their lives and interests OUTSIDE of medicine.
Mott Hospital is amazing. They're building a new hospital that won't be ready until 2011, but the old one isn't exactly shabby either. The hospital is very strong is its specialty patients -- this week on Peds ID consult service we have two (two!) patients with Job's Syndrome. Mott draws specialty patients from the entire Upper Midwest. I mean, come on, ECMO was created here. Being in more of a small city atmosphere, though, with plenty of rural towns nearby where we have our outpatient satellite clinics, I feel the residents get really well trained in general pediatrics as well. Whether you want to be a generalist or a specialist, I think UM prepares you for both.
Regarding research, I don't actually know tons about it since I'm only an M4, but I do know that a lot of our graduates end up specializing and working research for their particular field into their residency. Setting it up, I believe, is simply a matter of talking to your attending of interest.
Housing is totally reasonable as well. Most residents I know end up buying either a house or a condo.
Basically, I love it here. My resident this month has pretty much been telling me daily that I should stay here and that I will be hard pressed to find another program that is as resident-friendly as this one. While my heart lies back West and I'd like to get experience at another institution... I know deep down he's probably right.
