Residency appointments are for one-year, but house officers are accepted with the expectation that they will complete the full course of training needed for board certification.  Depending on track, residents are either employed by Boston Children’s Hospital or Boston Medical Center. Salary and benefits are determined by the employer, thus there are some differences in salary and benefits between the tracks. Categorical residents are employed by Boston Children’s Hospital, while LEAD residents are employed by Boston Medical Center (and are unionized under the Committee of Interns and Residents, CIR). For the last 10 years, the salaries set for BMC residents have been lower than the salaries set for Boston Children’s Hospital residents, as you can see in the table below. However, the residency firmly believes all residents in the program should be paid the same salary, such that the salary difference between the Categorial and LEAD residents has been made up/paid to the LEAD residents each year for the last 10 years in the form of a single payment made early in the spring. Although we are not able to predict how salaries will differ between the two institutions in the future, we will continue to make every effort possible to reconcile any salary differences between the two tracks each year, and to make benefits as comparable as possible.

Salaries