As others have mentioned already, the first quote is 100% incorrect. Every part of it.
If you want to do CT, by all means, the backdoor to THI is through BCM. That might be enough draw in itself. TCH has one of the best if not the best peds fellowships too. But realize that across the street at HVI and CMHH there are UT fellowships in CT and Pedi respectively.
But one month of elective SICU rotation at MDA as a Baylor resident does not a residency make. MDA is part of UTH's crit care fellowship...hence Botz. The CA3's also rotate through anderson on a thoracic month in addition to whatever electives they choose...on the same rotation as the THI fellows, by the way.
Either way, both residencies have great access at great institutions, it just seems [as others have pointed out] that you had a pretty skewed perspective of the lay of the land in Houston. And if people search the forum next year for either residency, it's best to have factual information rather than the interview koolaid.
I agree that both places are essentially strong places to train. Perhaps I should clarify: In my experience I found that Baylor had better ITE and board exam performance, stronger affiliations with nationally top ranked institutions with fellowships that I was interested in pursuing (Cards or Peds), more ABA oral board examiners, higher ACGME cycle status, and friendly faculty & residents who didn't seem overworked as much as the UT residents were. That, plus I think the Baylor name carries more weight nationally (important for someone who may want to move elsewhere after training).
At UT, there was a lot of bragging and trash talking about other programs (including Baylor and others). Both the faculty and residents seemed like they had an inferiority complex given how much they tried to convince me that they were better than Baylor. At Baylor, UT was not mentioned even once. I thought that was telling, and frankly off-putting. Their major selling points seemed to be that they were clinically superior (every program claims this), and that residents from UT were more desired by the job market in the Houston area (perhaps this is true, not sure, but there are other threads for that). Plus, the moonlighting.
UT seemed like they were a good and improving program but just didn't have the edge in the areas I found important (academic performance, didactics, fellowships, influential faculty, accreditation status, work/life balance) vs. Baylor. Needless to say, but these were my impressions and should be taken by future readers with a grain of salt based on what is important to them.
Both places are good, but for me, Baylor was better.
Sorry to sidetrack the discussion! Sorta snowballed.
