Here's a shout out for VA vascular and GS1!!
Vascular at the VA can be slow, but I think I had an exceptionally slow month and it was better for other people. Vascular is interesting and applies to many other fields. I have drawn from what I learned on vascular surgery on multiple other rotations. And all the attendings are great. Often early mornings to due conferences. Twice a week you have to be done rounding at ~6:30am to get to Froedtert.
GS1 can be much more demanding, depending on the caseload at the time. I think the surgeries are fairly interesting (liver, pancreas, stomach, etc.). Whipples are long, yes. But other stuff I would say is usually about 4-5 hours or less. Usually the longer cases have something interesting, unusual aspect about it that makes it worthwhile. Yes, one of the attendings has a difficult personality, but if you just understand her personality it won't really bother you. I actually like her. Others teach quite a bit. Hours can be longer. I was there during a particularly busy month and was typically there from 5am to ~7:30pm.
It's home call for both. VA splits call amongst all students there so you only end up with ~2. Home call for Froedtert is split amongst GS1, GS2 and Vascular. I never got called in, but did stay a little later once, but then the case was cancelled.
I highly recommend this combo if it hasn't been switched up.