I had an overall bad impression of the place. Galveston is pretty ghetto. The "beach" there is fairly unappealing, the buildings all look old, etc. Crime there is high. I wouldn't live there unless I absolutely had to.
The program itself seemed a bit questionable. The interim chair was actually a Urologist. Why couldn't they get an OPH to be interim chair??? About half of the attendings (if not more) were part time. I was told that one of these attendings did his UTSW cataracts on friday, which meant the resident had to come in to do his post-ops on saturday. Also, you have to go over to the prison hospital, which is a bit sketchy, and I really didn't want to be providing care to the nastiest of nasty criminals in Texas. I mean, these aren't your common inmates that they can shackle and just take to the local doctor.
The residents I met there were all very nice and seemed cool, but the attending left a different impression. I think having lots of part time faculty is a weakness anywhere. It generally had a bad reputation amongst the majority of people I met on the interview trail, but I did talk to some people who liked it. Who knows, maybe it's your kind of place. I ranked them. So much for "crappy" programs.
