Why Utah?
According to my interview season spreadsheet, the pros of Utah were “high volume/operative experience, every sub-specialty represented (including peds, recon, and andrology), private and university hospital experience, excellent autonomy, great call schedule, mountains and hikes (multiple ski resorts within 30 mins, 5 national parks within 5 hours), beautiful hospitals, good cost of living, Hawaii for Western Section AUA meeting every other year, EMR = Epic”. (The cons were “need to get better at skiing" and "the university service can be super busy”.) Now that I’m here, everything above remains true; but nothing beats the collegiality and support amongst the residents and attendings. And being able to go skiing after an early OR day is a pretty nice perk.