long time lurker, first time poster.

Disclaimer: the following impression is based on my imperfect memory from a single interview day during the 2009-2010 season.

Positives:
-Chairman and program are very supportive of residents career aspiration to enter academic or private practice.
-Residents are close knit and easy to get along with.
-Program gives generous money for books, courses, loupes, etc. (Can someone quote specific amount?)
-Early operative experience- PGY 2 is consistently in the OR 4 to 5 days/week doing an average of 2 to 3 cases.
-Call schedule is currently q5
-ICU intensivist is on call 24/7. The benefit to this in the words of one resident is that, “You won’t get called out of a cool case to put in a line.”
-Pediatrics experience can occur at Texas Children Hospital (largest peds hospital in Texas) or Weill Cornell
-Large number of faculty with expertise in many subspecialty areas including spine, vascular, epilepsy, endovascular, endoscopic, skull base, functional, tumor, etc.
-Highest resident salary among neurosurgery programs in TMC.

Neutral:
-Location Houston, TX
-Minimal trauma experience

Negatives:
-? autonomy

will post more later.

...continued from above
Positives:
-clinically busy program with 3500-4000 cases/yr. some cases go without resident coverage. PD stated volume could sustain up to 3 residents/yr.
-amazing facilities. remodeled NICU and neurosciences floor. cafeteria serves made to order omlettes, quesadillas, sushi, etc. staff nutritionists actually eat there!

Neutral:
- cyberknife radiosurgery system

Negatives:
-older faculty members are nearing retirement though none specifically stated they would during the interview.

this is my recollection from a couple years back:

Postive:
it is certainly a high volume program. cases go without resident coverage sometimes. the facilities are great. and as previously mentioned, cafeteria is awesome. Several of the attendings are awesome and are the most fun I’ve ever worked with. Intra-operative O-arm for pedicle screw placements. NP/PA cover the floor.

Neutral:
I wonder how the case number is counted. There’s another group of 4 neurosurgeons lead by Dr. Harper who operate at Methodist, and although technically part of Methodist hospital, I’m not sure if they are officially considered part of the residency training program.

Negative:
The program has a private practice tilt, and hence >85% (if not more) of the cases are spine. Although true that a program with 3500-4000 cases a year could sustain 3 residents in number, the limiting factor would be the diversity of cranial cases. With Ben Taub and Memorial Herman down the street, trauma exposure is non-existent at Methodist. (which might be considered a positive by some people)

Residents cover Dr.Harper and his partners cases in the OR. However, I don’t think they attend their clinics. As far as their role in the residency program, Dr.Harper was interviewing applicants this year.