I did research for a few years right next to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital. I've met the director of the surg. residency (he had an office with us and did some surg. research in our building). He was very mellow, and was always cool to everyone in our staff meetings. He had some interesting research ideas too, and was frequently sneaking pigs downstairs into our institute super early in the morning to avoid the animal rights activists (he did everything by the book, and was fully qualified by all the regulatory boards etc, but there were still protests).
I can't comment much on the residency itself, bec. I never met any residents. My impression is that SB is such a lifestyle town that the residencies (surg, IM, rad) are a little more competitive than they would be in a similar sized town elsewhere in the US. It's a good community program, but SB is not very large and is pretty sleepy. The ER can be fairly quiet (not always!).
They advertise that there is a wide range of pathology for the surgery residents, but I wonder about that bec. SB has alot of very rich retirees. When I volunteered in the ER, it was ALOT of chest pain/MI stuff. I know there is a good college crowd from UCSB, and a sizable group of Hispanic people as well, but I'd bet the median demographic is 60 yrs, white...so I've wondered if the path was all that varied. A resident there could give a more informed respnse.
The hospital itself is older and mazelike because they keep adding a new block on to the old building whenever they need one. Cafeteria's pretty good, and the medical library is dinky, but pretty nice to hang out in.
Finally, SB really is expensive. The median house price (a fairly ugly 2 bd) is around $750,000. There are some ok apartments near the hosp, but nothing great, and you'll pay at least $1400 per month for them unless you get a deal somewhere. Add to that the fact that the resident pay isn't very competitive, and you're looking at a pretty expensive 5 years, all told.
I love to surf, so living there was pretty cool, but after awhile it even got overpriced for me. By the time I left, I had concluded that SB is a place where you end up if you were successful in life. It is very rarely a place where you can start out in life. If you try it, you'll own very little of what you have.
Maybe that was too much about the place, and not much about the residency, but thought I'd send that out to you anyway.
