I keep hearing conflicting information regarding becoming a pediatrician. Do peds have their own residencies and considered gen practice or do they undergo a gen residency and then fellowship in peds later? How long should I anticipate being at an intern’s salary anyway? Just trying to understand things better since all I have to do this semester is ponder 
To the best of my knowledge, most pediatrics residencies are 3 years, at the end of which you would be eligible to apply for board certification in general pediatrics. If you go to an osteopathic school, you may have to do an additional intern year prior to your pediatric residency. Some people choose internal medicine/pediatrics, which is usually a 4 year residency.
If you wish to specialize in a pediatric sub-specialty, most of the pediatric fellowships are an additional 3 years of training beyond residency.
An excellent resource to search residency programs is FREIDA . You can search programs by type, location, and other criteria. They will give you general information about the programs.
Yup, general pediatrics is 3 years, same as family medicine and internal medicine. Unlike IM, which has sub-specialty training and fellowships of variable lengths (I think), and FM, where fellowships of various sorts (sports, OB, geriatrics? I think) are one year, peds sub-specialties are an additional three years. I have heard people say that this is why it is SO HARD to find pediatric sub-specialists. It practically takes an Act of Congress for me to get a pediatric endocrinologist to see a kid…
Mary
I think I’d get bored with a sub specialty lol. I like the idea of gen peds because I will deal with so many diff things during my day from babies to teens. Three years is a pleasant surprise as I was prepared for much longer.
What Mary said: peds have their own residencies and they are 3 years in duration. Peds is essentially not a competitive specialty, although there are individual programs that are more competitive to get into than others.
Regarding: How long will I paid like an intern? One year - your intern year. With most, if not all, programs you get a raise with promotion to the next year. Granted, the amount you will paid in training will never “set the world on fire”, but it is a hell of a lot better than what you get paid in med school…which is very very very negative.