I get asked about Pediatric Surgery fairly frequently by High
school/College/Medical Students/Surgery Residents. For what its worth,
here is some general info and advice:

The way it works is this:

1. You try to do well in high school and get good grades and test scores. Your general approach is “never burn any bridges” – ie, don’t get arrested/pregnant/quit school/flunk out/etc. In other words, don’t do things that limit your life choices, whatever they are (and they will change about a million times).

2. Get into a “good” college. Any state supported school qualifies – University of Michigan, UT, U of any state. You will get a good education (if you try to) at any school of that caliber or above. You probably won’t get a better education at Harvard or Oxford – you will, however, meet people and have opportunities at Oxford and Harvard you won’t get at Univer of Wisconsin, but in the grand scheme of things, going to University of Wisconsin will not hold you back in any way. Don’t get too caught up in spending zillions to go to an impressive school (one your parents like to brag to their friends about); but if you want to go there, fine.

3. Get good grades in college – high school doesn’t matter for %$*; college does. For med school you have to take 2 years of chemistry (4 courses on the typical semester plan), 1 year of biology, 1 year of physics. Enjoy college – its the best time of your life by a hundred miles

4. ALWAYS take the honors classes – they are easier (smaller class size, taught by professors instead of TA (teaching assistant who often find English difficult), instructors figure you must be smart – for God’s sake, you’re in the honors class – and if you don’t do well, they give you a B). Also, it looks good on the transcript.

5. Take a review course for the MCAT (med school admit test) -try to do well

6. Any US medical school is OK – same arguement as college

7. Again, do well in medical school if possible. In high school, there are a lot of morons. In college, there are less morons, but still quite a few. In medical school, almost nobody is stupid, and there will be people a LOT smarter than you. My friend (who sold his 3rd company for $ 265 million) from med school said to me, quite
innocently, during a pharmacology lecture – “Why do you take notes in these classes – I just memorize it all”. If you do really well in medical school, you can get into a good surgical residency. A good residency (at major university) is important.

8. For pediatric surgery, it is important to get into a good surgery residency – residencies are 5 years, but EVERYONE who matches in pediatric surgery has:

- done 2 additional years of research
- has an average of 6 -10 publications
- has done well on the annual ABSITE (a test given to all surgery residents annually)
- has letters of recommendation that say things like “best resident I’ve had in 15 years”

9. Our hospital has one of the more highly regarded training programs for pediatric surgeons. We get about 80 applications a year – nationally, there are about 20-30 training positions (fellowships). They take 2 years to complete. All of the applicants are top notch – people don’t bother to apply if they realize they won’t match. I interview about 40 applicants per year – we pick 1.

10. Persistence is the hallmark of success. A reasonably intelligent person can do about any career – if they are persistent. You can do it.

Overall, worrying/thinking about a medical subspecialty at the high school level is OK, but it is much more important to “take a day at a time” – do well in high school. Then do well in college, etc etc. A kid who is really good in high school baseball would be better off with “winning the state championship” as his/her focus and goal,
rather than “I’m going to play shortstop for the New York Yankees”

None of this is meant to be discouraging – see # 10 above. If I managed to do it, pretty much anybody can.