I am by no means an expert or any kind of authority on this, but I did a fair number of spine cases when I was a scrub tech, and a few as a med student, so I can give at least a limited perspective on the length of the procedures. My answer is this: it's variable. This doesn't convey much, but it really depends on what the procedure actually entails. Are you just doing a lami? Are you putting in plates and screws or grafts? Are you doing a lateral thoracotomy approach to do a multi-level fusion and grafting (these can take 8 hours!)? The more straightforward lamis, even with plates and screws can take about 2-3 hours, whereas the more complicated stuff--i.e., multi-level or oncology--can take all day.
As far as favorite procedures, if we're being limited to ortho (since I'm going into GS, obviously the ortho cases weren't my favorite), I'd have to say the TKAs were my favs. I felt very comfortable retracting and hammering in pins.
