I am originally from the West Coast and that's where my family is. That was my pull to the West. However, I wanted to go to a program that would be a great fit for me also. Wake would have been a great fit. I interviewed at 6 west coast programs and the only one I ranked above Wake was Maricopa, where I am now. So, almost everything I have to say about Wake is positive. The people in the ED are great and the facilities at Wake are top notch. Winston-Salem is a terrific place to live, especially if you are married. Relatively small city, laid back people, great cost of living, family oriented town. However, if you are single and looking for a night life, Winston is not the place. The clinical training is the ED is pretty good and the schedule is the lightest of all the programs I interviewed at (about 18-19 8 hour shifts per month). However, the one disadvantage I did see is the relationship between the ED and other services such as medicine and surgery. Medicine and surgery are very strong and sometimes view the people in the ED as not so strong (the ED residents are very strong in my opinion, but that's just how it is sometimes there). Overall, the bottom line is I still ranked Wake #2 out of 18 programs.
One program on the East Coast that I almost cancelled my interview at, but turned out to have fantastic politics for ED residents was Albany. If that's important to you, check that place out. It was one of the unexpected pleasant surprises on my interview trail.