What do you mean by holding sticks?!
He means "holding hook" - just standing around holding retractors, watching others operate.
Try Kern and San Joaquin. uclacrewdude is at san joaquin - PM him
The title was BEST programs in Cali and NY. Kern and San Joaquin are considered in no conversations that I am aware of that discusses the best surgical residencies in California.
Even if you leave location out of it (Bako and French Camp/Stockton are hardly the nicer areas of California), these are not amongst the best respected programs...that is not to say that you won't be a competent surgeon graduating from one of these, but I would never include them as best programs. I'm fairly sure uclacrewdude would agree.
UCSD suffers from its malignant rep - reportedly its gotten better over the years and if interested in trauma, it doesn't see much penetrating, but as a resident that shouldn't be your primary concern.
UCI is one of those places that most people outside of California have never heard of; that isn't necessarily bad, but I think most people in academic surgery outside of Cali would say, "where"?
Conventional wisdom has UCSF (not including the Fresno or East Bay branches), Stanford and UCLA at the top of most people's list of the best surgical residencies in California. Close would also be Santa Barbara Cottage, Cedars and possibly USC (very old school, traditional approach).
Despite the above, the OP needs to define what he means by "best". It is likely he means "best academic reputation" but the best residency for someone isn't necessarily at the place with the best rep - geographics obviously play a huge role for many when choosing a residency, as does autonomy, rep for teaching, research opportunities (if into that stuff), etc.
