I recently rotated there as a visiting student.
UW is a great place. As the main hospital for 5 states (Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming), lots of trauma come in. You'll work hard as PGY2 resident on q5 call. PGY-2 curriculum also includes plastics/neuro, so you get exposure to surgery, specifically to oculoplastics, which requires early application during PGY3 year. Also you get 10 weeks of protected research time as PGY2. For PGY-3 curriculum, they're moving away from site-based learning (VA vs Chilren's hospital etc) to subspecialty based learning (Glaucoma, Cornea, peds). Their pediatric ophtho is very robust with many many interesting patients and a very bright peds chairperson, Dr Avery Weiss. There is a high percentage of foreign-language speaking patients, so the use of interpreter services is quite frequent. One day in general clinic I thought almost half of the patients required interpretation.
The chair Dr Van Gelder is highly highly respected and is a giant in ophthalmology. He's moving the department forward in big steps. Morale is high among faculty members.
Teaching seemed solid; county hospital gives plenty of exposure to diverse patient population; residents are happy. Seattle is a great location with lots of outdoors experience (ocean and mountain) if you want. The view of the ethereal Mount Rainer is absolutely breathtaking, and is the best part of being in Seattle, if you ask me.
