I interviewed at Baylor this year and I think it is one of the top sleeper programs. The Baylor ortho dept takes care of 2 professional sports teams (the Astros and Texans), the Baylor teams, and the Rice teams. You know that the professional teams (who could have anyone they want) would choose the best. The Houston VA is the newest in America. Ben Taub hospital (the public hospital) is an incredible trauma center where residents get to operate a lot. It's as busy as Cook county or King/Drew. You wouldn't know it's a public hospital from walking around in there though --- the ER has a C arm, there are no hallway beds, and the hospital has a PACS system. Texas Children's, Shriner's, MD Anderson ... need I go on? The facilities are excellent and in fact Texas Medical Center is the largest in America. Unlike other programs, Baylor does not farm its residents out to another hospital for anything. You will operate at the VA and Ben Taub and refine your skills at the subspecialty hospitals (St. Luke's), Methodist.
There are weekly conferences on each subspecialty service, Grand Rounds, Basic Science Conference, and anatomy lab. There are no Saturday conferences.
Baylor routinely puts people in competitive fellowships in spine and sports.
Downsides are that the department does a lot of clinical research but not a great deal of basic research. The university has a lot of basic science research available, though.
The other downside is that there is no chairman as of the time of this writing. As we are all aware, chairmen are hopping across the country and they are being very selective in whom they choose. I think that the most likely candidate is an internal guy.
Houston is a great, warm place to live where residents can buy houses and live well.
