Sure, I can do that!
My career goals are to pursue a pulmonary and critical care fellowship. I'd like to become an intensivist at a tertiary care facility at the height of my career. I'm not interested in pursuing research in and of itself, but I know that research is important for fellowship placement and I want to keep as many doors open for myself as possible, so in that regard I see research as a means to an end.
What I want most in a residency program is excellent clinical training. I want to be exposed to a lot of things and master as many things as I can during my three years of residency so that by the end of it, I am as best of a clinician as I can be.
That said, I also want to strike the right balance between working hard to receive great training and being overworked just for the sake of being overworked. That is kind of what makes me wary of Loyola and UIC. I hear rumors that these programs (Loyola in particular) work their residents to the bone. I'm not afraid of working hard and I anticipate 80 hour work weeks, but I don't want to just slave away at a program if it isn't making me better at doing my job. Then again, I understand that these are just rumors and reputation and honestly don't know how to verify them and what to make of it all.
As for location, I'm not incredibly picky. I moved around the country a lot growing up and so I don't have any strong ties to one particular region, all I really want is to live in a fun and lively place, which is why these are my top four programs as Southern california, houston and chicago are all pretty cool places.