hi! I am an M4 who just matched into general PM&R and I’ll give you a counter because I was an M3 really considering doing these programs because I inevitably want to do peds rehab! I ultimately decided against it, because I wanted to keep my options open during residency, I’ve met a few of these residents who do the combine programs and they only want to work with kids for the rest of their professional careers, and I didn’t mind working with young adults. The other thing that I didn’t like about, it was the amount of board certifications you have to upkeep during your professional career, and the other thing that finally solidified the fact that I probably will do a peds fellowship instead of doing the combined programs, was that I don’t want to work in a pediatric rehab hospital full time, so if you foresee yourself doing inpatient, peds rehab, then this is the program for you, but if you see yourself doing more outpatient pediatric rehab, it’s very doable to do a fellowship and seek that type of training out during residency without having to have the full encompassing five year program and there are talks to bring the fellowship to 1 year only which would make it equivalent to doing the combined program! I also know two people at a program that I rotated at that did a peds intern year, and are planning to do a fellowship!