There are several differences (I'll let you decide whether they are cons or not) between Community programs vs University based ones. Keep in mind that this is not true for all programs and it does vary from place to place on occassion.
Community program: There tends to be less number of residents and usually no fellows. This translates into a "general" pathology type of setting where an attending will sign out all forms of cases with you whereas in other settings (university) a GI Path attending will sign out GI cases, Breast specialist breast cases and so on. You probably will be doing alot more "chore" work that your university counter parts and at a faster pace since the coimmunity based attendings have some form of "performance" quota to meet and need to keep the clinicians happy. You also may miss out on a lot of "zebras" as they get referred out to the big name places in town. Also you must pay attention to the didactics and rounds schedule. Who are the people giving lectures? What are the calibers of the grand rounds speakers?There is also chance of having to go to other facilities to fulfill certain rotations (ie blood bank, forensics) but this may also be the case with some university programs.
University program: More residents, more fellows. Higher autopsy numbers (matters if you're not too thrilled about this rotation). Lecture series along with resources are much more available in addition to "benchwork" research opportunities. You very well may get people that are among the "whos who" of that specialty (ie Fletcher at Brigham or Foucar at NM). The other aspect is the fact that you'll deal with residents in other departments alot rather than attending clinicians. The presence of fellows in pathology is not a drawback thanks for multiheaded scopes whereas in some clinical residencies fellows can take away from your experience. Bottom line is more teaching.
Anyway, I am sure the forum veterans will throw in their words of wisdom as well.
By the way, good luck all on the residency interviews!
GD
