University of Virginia Health System

Why Charlottesville and UVA?

Charlottesville is a small, thriving city that has kept up with the well-cultivated tastes of its inhabitants. The city’s population is 40,000; the local area population is 145,000. There are few places in the United States that combine a picturesque and cultivated countryside that is so rich in historical associations with the proximity of a national park and a wide array of cultural opportunities.

Money Magazine in 1998 named Charlottesville among the top cities in the United States.

Residency Program: One of the biggest strengths of the orthopaedic residency program is how the residents and faculty interact.  There is tremendous rapport among the residents and the faculty.

Fun and culture: Theatregoers attend on-Grounds productions by the Virginia Players and the Heritage Repertory Theatre or performances by the Four County Players and the Light Opera Society. Music-lovers look forward to the University’s Tuesday Evening Concert series or concerts by local bands and symphony orchestras. University students, community members of all ages and visitors to the area enjoy fine art from around the world at the permanent galleries and special exhibitions at the University of Virginia Art Museum. The city also supports a number of art galleries and twenty-six movie theatres, along with an impressive selection of restaurants.

Festivals and fairs:The area celebrates spring with a Dogwood Festival and Parade, highlighted by blooming azaleas, dogwood and redbud trees. The Virginia Festival of the Book, which brings together readers and writers from around the country for lectures, seminars, and discussions about literature, poetry, and nonfiction, also occurs in early spring.

Summer festivals include the weekly after-work celebration, Fridays After Five, a lively concert series at the grassy amphitheatre at the western end of the historic downtown mall. Summer also brings a Fourth of July celebration and ceremonies at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home.

Fall hosts regional crafts fairs to the area, wine tasting tours, and breathtaking scenic drives through the Blue Ridge Mountains to view the fall foliage.

Every winter brings First Night Virginia’s New Year’s Eve festivities for families, featuring live music, entertainment, and fireworks at midnight. 

Downtown: Downtown Charlottesville is the legal, financial, and social hub of the community. It’s not unusual to see lawyers walking from their Court Square offices to try their first case of the day. Or old friends meeting for breakfast at one of the local eateries on the Downtown Mall, a tree-lined pedestrian walkway connecting the convention center and ice-skating rink with the city’s new municipal amphitheatre. Recently, the mall has undergone a renaissance, as new coffee houses, art galleries, outdoor cafes, an indoor ice-skating rink, a multiplex theatre, and restaurants have brought more people to the area for recreation.

In the quiet times of the day, you can just glimpse the sleepy southern town that was Charlottesville forty years ago. But as the sun rises, the pace of activity picks up considerably, and Downtown Charlottesville moves firmly into the twenty-first century. The restaurants and retail stores on the mall are bustling, as professionals, students, and townspeople stop for lunch or to check their e-mail in one of our many coffee shops with Internet connections.     

"The Corner": A collection of student shops, bookstores, cafes, and night spots, "the Corner" on University Avenue is the center of student life at the University. Always bustling, the Corner is especially active at noon. Faculty and staff adjourn there for lunch, where they mingle with students. Patrons of the Corner’s sidewalk cafes can be found spending time over a good book or simply sipping coffee and people watching.