Hi. I do not know much about residency. I was wondering if you receive a salary during those years and also how many years actually is it to complete residency?
You are paid during residency. It looks like in the Chicago area, you can expect the pay to start around $39k / year. You can view the salaries for different programs at the FREIDA website.
You have to do a residency to be board eligible in a field. After completing medical school, you can also just do 1 year of internship and obtain a license to practice medicine. I only know a very few people who have done this in recent years. All residencies I know of are at least 3 years, and can be as long as 6 years (neurosurgery for example). If you include general surgery plus vascular surgery fellowship, you could be looking at 7 years. I'm sure there are other combinations that can be longer.