Mayo Clinic Residency Reviews

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NeedMyCoffee

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All rightey, now that there's a lull...

USC/LA County - kick ass program in my opinion. Ages old, well established, grabbing academic faculty from the other big name in LA, so getting right up there in terms of putting out research and stuff. The get a huge patient volume, loads of trauma, good U/S. Will be moving into a new hospital in a year or so, which takes away some of the charm. So-so ancillary. Not for the faint of heart...PD and assistant PD very strong.

Mayo - new program, but already has worked out several of the kinks. Well respected in the hospital. Surprisingly broad patient base. Faculty young and dynamic, residents super friendly. Nice facilities, Mayo will pay for a lot of your expenses for the interview except for your airfare...if you become a resident, Mayo'll pay for any type of elective u wanna do! The big downside for a lot of folks is Rochester...nice place for families though if you can stand the weather.

Brown - residents pretty happy. Hospital sees both county type and private patients. Great pediatrics. Brand new simulator program where you can learn everything on a very lifelike dummy so you're not doing something for the first time with a real patient...you've practised on the dummy already. Pretty well respected around the hospital. Providence is a nice small city, which however does turn some people off. PD might leave something to be desired however...

Anybody have any questions, feel free to PM away...happy holidays everyone

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Holy you-know-what! I have only made it through dinner at this place and still have tomorrow to interview. I can say without a doubt that I have never in my life seen an established medical facility anywhere on this scale. This is truly the first place that has made me feel anxious about being a DO. Indy was phenomenol, but I never felt like I might be inferior to anyone as a DO. Here I think even the MD's who graduate top of their class start off intimidated. There is really no way to describe this place except to say that I felt like I was one of those kids who was getting his last wish in life...to tour Mayo Clinic. I got the backdoor tour from a resident I met tonight, and I was shown some of the most rare art that you would not even see in most major city art museums. Tiffany lamps, Warhohl painting, you name it!! And it sounds like they have established themselves as likely the best young EM program in the country, and there is no doubt they will be at the top one day. This experience was much different than Duke which is the eastern US equivilant of a new program. No offense to Duke I swear, but I just felt like Mayo went out of its way to sell itself. I never felt like the residents at Duke were trying to sell themselves and instead were riding on the Duke name a bit too much. From what I learned just from talking to the residents, this place would be an extremely good program were it to be in any place other than Mayo as well. It sounds like offservice rotations are damn good, but it also sounds like they have already worked out the kinks to where they do the offservice rotations mostly in an EM slant. There is no scut on ortho, psych, cardiology etc...They do a combo of 8, 10, and rare 12 hour shifts, and work very fair hours in the ED. I'll edit this post after I get home from Mayo, but then again I might just call my med school and tell them I want to stay here for 4 straight electives! Did I mention that Rochester is the overall nicest city I have been to in 10 interviews? The only comparrision was Iowa City but it was not this nice. I walked around downtown and the adjoining neighborhoods for a couple of hours this afternoon while it was snowing lightly and around 17 degrees. The cold was not bad at all, and there were no homeless asking for money, or dirty streets. It was clean, vibrant, and peacefully tranquil within one block from the hospital and downtown. Stay tuned for tomorrow's additions to this post to see what else I find after meeting the program directors and remaining residents. Finally, I think I am going to be able to say that Indianapolis is going to have some serious midwest competition from Mayo now and in the future. I have come nowhere close making a rank list and refuse to until I have seen each place. But I now know that there is not simply one or two places that will stand out as top programs in my mind. Now this is what I was hoping for when I scheduled all these interviews......some honest, friendly, competition!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, so now back from Mayo at 2AM after being snowed in in Chioago. The cool thing is that just about any flight out of Rochester is about guaranteed to hold multiple applicants travelling to interview. So tonight I shared beers with an articulate IM applicant from OU who was really pretty cool. We both were trying to make our flights out of Chicago. We were laughing about how cordial were being today, and how we hoped that would not change is we both ended up at Mayo. We listened to each other's complaints about the other's profession and it actually made sense to talk about it that way. I thing for too many decades now services tend to complain in the back hallways where the complainees aren't able to hear it first hand. And thus the myth becomes perpetuated year after year. I know I would be perfectly happy to sit down and listen to a medicine chief defbrief an experience in my future ED, and if reasonable I would be willing to work to accomodate them. I think this can work both ways and can foster better working relationships.

More about Mayo in the next post.
 
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Happy to say that I am pleasantly wow'd by the century old institution in the middle of Rochester, Mn. Pictures and stories do this place no justice. In your lifetime, you must promise yourself that you will visit and tour for an entire day to be sure to see the art tour as well. The only way I can put a picture in your mind of what Mayo is like would be to have you pretend that you have been a catholic priest for a few years. Then you take a trip to the Vatican and become speechless. Marble staircasings, huge granite sculptures, statues, Native pottery from archaeology digs. The hallways are wide, the doors are tall, and even the emergency department bays all seemed 2 times the size of the bays where I work. The equipment is top knotch, and OMG, the simulation lab is freaking unbelievable, squared!! Its probably 50,000 square feet of multiple replicas of Mayo's exact hospital rooms, ED bays, and OR's. They even have actors that try to interrupt your scenario to seek out info about their sick loved one (or shall I say rubber man). In the lobby of the Mayo Clinic building is some concert pianist who plays all day. St. Mary's is the largest hospital I have ever set foot in. In the Peds ED, they have these people who's only job is to distract the child who needs an invasive procedure. I think they blow bubbles and do mime or something else! The helicopter service has the ED residents in the same role as any of the other physician crews, like Case, Indy, etc...The only caveat is that you don't have to fly and if you don't want to after your one month EMS rotation you are free to never do it again. I think flexibility with opportunity is the best way to describe this, and it is the perfect mix now that I have been schooled.

Residents: They seemed very nice, were helpful, with many different impressive backgrounds. One resident stood out though as a natural leader but I was dissappointed to hear him say he would not be chief most likely. He was by far the most advanced and articulate 2nd year I have come across on the trail. He spent about 5 hours of his off time taking us all to dinner, and touring us today.

Faculty: This PD is good guys! She has these eyes that see right through you when you talk to her and you have this feeling she understands what you are saying whether she hears the words or not. Took me very offguard during one interview question and literally had me hypnotized I think!! No seriously though, she uses typical emotion seeking techniques to find a point of adversity in your life and if you are not careful you may find yourself looking for the tissues. I left that session feeling I had been part of an exhorcism. I was glad to hear I was not the only one though that experienced this.

Patient population: I truly believe that Mayo is the only program in the country that can combine a population of indigent, and royalty in one ED setting and end up training you to be a great ED doc without having to divide your time in 2 different settings. One of the big headaches in EM training is the constant division between the community and academic experience. I felt before I saw Mayo that Indy accomplished this goal the best with Wishard and Methodist a mere mile apart connected by a tram. Mayo basically has everything these 2 places have under one roof.

Patient flow is down to a science. There are no "day 3 ops patients", and after 6 hours in the ED some hospital traffic control person ensures the attending has a good reason to keep them that long. There is rarely ever a hold up at the curb, nor at the admission. There seems to be no fighting about admissions because they have a central dispatch who calls whatever service you want and TELLS them they are receiving an ED patient.

Here is the my little ending that summarizes my day there. I was walking outside in the snow and noticed one of the lights that illuminates the flags that fly outside Mayo was burnt out. Being an odd shape in a precarious place hovering over a ledge I postulated that the bulb we stay burnt out forever. But I kid you not, like my mind was being read, some elf looking guy riding a bright red and blue spaceaged automatic rolling thing and he drives it right up and parks it under the lamp. He presses a few buttons and hydrolics lift him to the bulb. He changes it, and he reverses course to re-enter the hospital through some door I did not even realize was there.

The place really is Wonka-land. This place is a must see on the residency application trail. I consider myself rather worldly having been to 40+ of our states, and 30+ countries, but I was still blown away by Mayo and all its timehonored traditions.

But I should warn you about 2 things. If you are not married and perhaps have kids or are planning to do the above, then Mayo EM may not be the best fit for you. I should also warn you that this place is incredibly competitive. Of all my interviews, Mayo had the highest caliber of applicants I have seen, with at least 2-3 already graduated and doing stuff like Navy Regimental Surgeon or research.
 
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Hi there!
I'm a bit paranoid about somehow writing residency reviews that come back to haunt me (despite the fact that I've had very positive experiences so far). So here I am, anonymous! If this is discouraging anyone else, I think you should start a new ID and write up your thoughts, since Scutwork seems to be MIA at the moment this is all we've got.

Mayo Clinic
I drove in to the Rochester, and the landscape seemed quite desolate, mostly farmland. It was snowy in the Rochester area. On a more positive note, Minneapolis looks like a great town, much to my surprise. Many restaurants, theaters, and of course lakes. That's about an hour and a half from Rochester.

The Mayo Clinic takes up most of Rochester, it encompasses many many buildings. The main building is beautiful, all windows and steel. The Emergency Department is housed over in the St. Mary's Hospital though, and all rotations for the residency are there except OB. There are constant shuttles between the two hospitals. Rochester is the kind of small city that is dead on the weekends and at night because people live in the suburbs.

The dinner the night before was fabulous, loved the restaurant. The hotel was OK, I'm just happy to have a hotel, but when I was turning on the shower, the shower handle came off and water started going everywhere like a geyser. That was a little weird.

The program: The residents told me a few things of interest - there are 2 electives in the curriculum, the residents are happy, the off-service rotations are obviously great, and the department spends a lot of money on the residents, and there is no dictation, which I liked. I really liked the program director, and everyone you talk to (residents, faculty, etc.) says she is one of the greatest strengths of the program. She was very serious, but in a kind way. She stressed that they are interested in leadership qualities and that they have a tradition of taking IMGs (highly qualified IMGs), which was interesting.

Other best things: The research opportunities looked amazing. Top notch. There were posters everywhere of resident and attending research projects. The sim lab just completely blew me away, too. I have never seen a better sim lab and I doubt that I will anywhere else on the interview trail.

Worst things: Probably the location, depending on who you are. The ED itself actually wasn't that amazing compared to what I was expecting form the quality of the other facilities, but it was very nice.
 
Great question and an easy one I think.

Pros:
- The staff and facilities are top notch! I include our electronic medical record, paraemergency departmetns (radiology, labs, etc.) in this point.
- The severity and complexity of medical illness that we care for is unparalleled.
- Great ultrasound / echocardiography training
- Wonderful opportunity for critical care experience
- Flight program is great I am told (I am too junior to have yet participated).
- Hyperbaric medicine program is growing exponentially as we just built a 20 plus person hyperbaric facility!
- Opportunity to travel abroad and within the domestic US; often times hospital funded.
- The consulting services available to learn directly from is tremendous

Cons:
- Need more penetrating trauma
- The weather of the town (however, this provides plenty of blunt trauma so it is double edged!)
 
Mayo Clinic

Ever notice how many letters in common Mayo has with money. This program has a LOT of money and that money is being poured into the residency program

Residents: 9 residents in the intern class. The social event was at a resteraunt that is right next to the hotel and the food was great, the servings are huge though, so go hungry! Everyone was incredibly nice, with nothing but good things to say about the hospital and the program. It is a "family program" though, almost everyone is married with children; but it seemed very evident throughout the day that the residents have formed a tight unit and are very close.

Faculty: I loved the PD. She was the best part of the entire experience I believe. One of the best resident advocates I have met; when she was introducing the program at the beginning of the day, you could see how much she genuinely cared about the residents! The only faculty I met were those that were interviewing me. Everyone seemed very intelligent and there is a very strong "academic" feeling to all of the faculty members. The offservice faculty are also very strong and it seems like with the exception of a couple of attendings, the residents loved working with everyone. Word of warning though, I think that the interviewers were told to maintain a blank expression during their interviews, so it was really hard to read what they were thinking; it was a little disconcerting, but when I was speaking to a few of the other residents later, they told me that they had decided to do this on purpose. There were the usual questions; and a couple of the interviewers had a checklist of questions that they followed very closely.

Hospital: Absolutely beautiful hospital. It's worth going just to be a tourist there. It's like being in another world where medicine is practiced the way it is supposed to be, where everyone seems to get along, and people walk around in suits (except for EM people of course). The ED is a usual ED, I esp. like the Peds ED; the have pictures in frames that cover all the resus equipment, so you can hide all the scariness away from the children. The ICUs and the rest of the hospital is gorgeous. I loved the helicopter as well (it was stressed that flying is optional, and several residents opted out of it)

Ancillary Stuff: Phenomenal. Everything seems to happen almost magically. In fact, everything moved so smoothly that I think that's almost a bad thing; I feel like I would get too spoiled at this program and be a little thrown off when I go back into the real world.

Admitting/Documentation: Very easy to get patients admitted and it seems like they have an infinite amount of beds available for patients to go to. The documentation system appears to be in limbo now and it seems like there is a split between computer/paper/and dictation; the residents said they were working on improving this.

Curriculum: Three years, no floor months, lots of ICU time. They have some pretty neat rotations here that I haven't seen elsewhere, such as a month of hand; something that seems like it would be very beneficial that I wouldn't have thought to do otherwise. They also have a sim lab heavy curriculum that has become integrated into their regular lecture series. Everyone has to come up with an original scholarly project and they stress this strongly. They also are very interested in international medicine, both in the residents that they select and in the electives that they send their residents out to. This is one thing about their program that I loved; it truly made me feel like Mayo was a very worldly/international program. I believe they do 9 hour shifts, the residents don't seem overworked and seem to be able to have an outside life easily.

Didactics: Didactics seem phenomenal, a huge plus for the program. Everyone spoke very highly of the lectures and of the sim lab.

City: It's Rochester. I didn't like it very much. It is very much the middle of nowhere, where everything revolves around Mayo clinic. This is one of the biggest negatives of Mayo. If you're married, you can own a home and live a comfortable life; but if you are single; not very much to do outside of the hospital. Buy a tv and expect to drive out a lot to the twin cities.

Extras: Money, money, money, money... soo much money. Not in terms of the salary, but in terms of the awesome benefits that come with it. They had Levitan fly over to give the airway course to their residents. Slm fast opened up a HUGE fitness center; lots of money for perks; awesome healthcare plans; money for books... People are easily able to buy a home, and in fact, have money to save for a rainy (or in this case, very snowy) day.

Negatives: Rochester... I really didn't like the place, I could force myself to live there for three years, but it isn't my favorite place in the world. Mayo clinic almost seems too good to be true; I don't know if it will prepare me for the headache that would come when I leave.

Overall: This program will train you to be a very good EM doc, your offservice rotations will be unparalleled. The life is comfortable and the PD is fantastic. It is also a very academic environment with a strong focus on didactics and the sim lab. I would be very happy to match here, but I'm not sure how high up on my rank list this will be.
 
Interview day/Residents: Mayo was one of the interviews that I hesitated or deliberated on going to because of the location but found out that I loved it after going to the interview. There is a social the night before the interview. It's at a restaurant. Mine for some reason or another was not well attended. Could've been that my interview was extremely late in the season (mid Jan) We had only two residents show up + 1 S.O. who was a peds resident. The two who showed up were friendly. I felt I didn't get a good impression of the residents. Even during the interview day, no one really made as much an effort to get to know the interviewees as other residencies. I do got to say that the ones I did meet were friendly, social, and happy with their choice.

Faculty: Diverse attendings. A couple trained in Chicago, some from East Coast, some from Midwest. They were down to earth easy to talk to. I liked the PD. She comes off as extremely quiet and reserved. But we shared a lot of stuff in common and we ended up talking during my interview about running and sports. I think she is completely dedicated to her residents and will go to bat for you. The quiet but passionate about her residents type.

Facilities: Let me preface what is to follow. The downtown clinic is where you do very few of your rotations at. The ED is actually at the original and main hospital in the less nicer area of Rochester. So while you may be impressed by the downtown campus clinic, you are not there most of the time.

so anyways- downtown clinic: It's one of the nicest places I have ever been to. The lobby has a piano player. There is marble on the wall/floor. They own a quarry where they import all their own marble. There are tunnels that lead everywhere from all wings of the hospital to some parts of downtown Rochester. It's like a mall in there. The staff are world class. They have so much money and resources there. The gym was jaw dropping amazing. pilates, cycling, lap running around the gym. You could live at Mayo and not need to leave the facilities for anything. The ED is at St. Marys Hospital.

Main ED: St Mary's is the original Mayo hospital and houses all the ICUs, all the services, except for ob-gyn and heme/onc. Those services are at the ancillary hospital downtown- at Rochester Methodist. There is additional OR space there. (Side historical note: obgyn was separate from the original Mayo hospital because the nuns have some issues with them for their reproductive Catholic stance). St Mary's ED has a volume of 80,000 + pts a year. It's easy to get to by shuttle from the downtown campus. The hospital's ED was about average. Compared to the main Mayo hospital, I was surprised to see the ED was not more modern. For a city as small as Rochester, they get a surprisingly large amount of gang violence and trauma. They operate a large catchment area due to their Mayo One aeromedical services. It pretty much covers most of Minnesota and parts of Wisconsin I believe.

Misc: This didn't fit in either section but they have tertiary care clinics at Jacksonville, Florida and Scottsdale, Arizona. At both sites, you can elect to do some rotations at if you get sick and tired of the Minnesota weather. Mayo owns housing in both sites. Money doesn't seem to be an issue at Mayo. If you can think it, they will do it if it's reasonable.

Location: Rochester is about an hour away from Minneapolis. the hospital is at the center of the city in the "downtown" area. I liked the feel it seemed more middle America, small town. They had a small mall there with a Barnes and noble. The city is pretty much the hospital. It's safe to say that Mayo owns much of the land and is the biggest employer there. The airport is owned by Mayo to just put it in perspective. They fly in dignitaries, politicians, royalty to that airport to get you to the hospital. mayo even owns its own planes. I found that coming from NYC, you have to know what you're getting yourself into. Rochester isn't like Ann Arbor. The colleges around it have a small student population so there is not much in terms of night life. A lot of the residents said the program was more for residents who have families and looking to settle down. Most people own houses what with the real estate there. No need to rent.

Curriculum: 3 yr curriculum. Not sure of shift times. But heavy emphasis on simulation. 20 % taught into. It's cool to see how the sims are run in their center. They can pretty much run anything from a peds case to adult ED cases. The center is at the downtown hospital. It's an evolving curriculum that the PD is enthusiastic to get resident's feedback from. I feel the program is young and improving.

Overall: Extremely impressed by the downtown hospital and the EMS opportunities there. I was actually snowed in my interview day so had to be bused to Minneapolis. The day made me reflect on how rough Minnesota winters could be. Despite this, if you're looking at a program that places you well in community academic jobs, with a strong bend towards research and EMS, Mayo would fit well.
 
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Mayo Residency Review
Interview day/Residents: It was early in the interview season and the residents seemed excited to meet us and answer any questions. Dinner before was at a nice restaurant and there were around 10 residents + kids/S.Os. Interview day included a tour of the helicopter pad on top of the hospital to see "Mayo One." Pretty awesome.

Faculty: Diverse attendings. I rotated here and got excellent teaching. Morale seems high. Program director is new within the last year or two. Nice guy and very receptive to the needs of the residents.

Facilities: ED is not brand new, but well-equipped (it is Mayo). Trauma bays are more than adequate and allow for taping to review at trauma conference. ICUs are state-of-the-art. Downtown clinic is beautiful although residents won't spend much time there.

Misc: Excellent benefits (health insurance, dental, vision, gym, etc..)

MIHP is a global health program that funds international work.

Location: Rochester is small but has some restaurants/shopping/entertainment. Not too far from the cities. Living costs are very low.

Curriculum: 3 yr curriculum. 20% peds. Lots of sim.

Overall: Program is strong and PD has discrete goals to keep the program moving forward. Residents are hard-working and fun to work with. Am interested in academic EM and would be happy to match here.
 
Mayo Residency ReviewMorale seems high. Program director is new within the last year or two.

Anyone know where the last program director went?

HH
 
Mayo Clinic: The strengths of the program include:

1. Excellent/Top Notch faculty: truly devoted to education
2. Research opportunities: outstanding
3. Level 1 Trauma: covers not only SE Minnesota but the surrounding states, so much more than would be expected and interns get the airway for every trauma on their shifts.
4. Mentorship: encouraged to have an academic and research advisor that meets with you quarterly to help support your growth throughout your three years
5. Three year (instead of four year program)
6. Moonlighting: allowed (as long as you're in good standing) and can be done through Mayo so no outside insurance is needed if you just stay in network.
7. Residents: Down to earth and humble but incredibly bright when you hear their accomplishments/publications/mission trips etc. More recent classes are a mix of married/single
8. Off service rotations: reasonable hours, include 2 ICU months during first year and 2 ICU months during second year (great if you are interested in critical care). International opportunities are encouraged and more often than not funded 100% with scholarships. Also rotations can be arranged at Arizona and Jacksonville and Mayo pays for your housing (in a nice complex), transportation, food...etc.
9. Memberships/Conferences: Pay for you to go to ACEP first year (hotel, transportation, food)
10. Food budget each year: $1600 (wow) in the cafeteria. Benefits at Mayo are unparalleled by any other place that I interviewed--healthcare, dental, optho, childcare (if you need it), unlimited scrubs (no cards for scrub machines here), disability, fellows association events (free movies/cheaper dry cleaning/periodic sponsored events for residents & families) and membership at the Mayo credit union which has more benefit offers
11. Respect for new learners: this hospital really respects residents and employees and everyone treats each other with dignity and respect. Which is excellent for the first year of your training where you are still learning the ropes.
12 Support staff: PA's/nurses/assistants: very invested in patient care and helpful.

Overall, residents are very happy at this program. There is little left to be desired at this program, except maybe less cold weather in the wintertime! As long as you can learn to adapt to cold weather, this might become one of your top picks, come rank list time!
 
1) General: 3 year program with 9 residents per year, 80K patient visits per year, 25% pediatric. ED is based out of st Mary's hospital which is ten blocks from downtown mayo clinic location. This is the main hospital for mayo clinic, a massive 1260 bed hospital. Basically all patients that are admitted from mayo clinic come here, this is where all the ICUs are located as well as the ED. You will spend 90% of your time here at st marys. This place is close by the clinic location, fully a part of mayo clinic, just not as nice but fully stocked from a technology and resource standpoint. Also to note is that the ED is undergoing an expansion and supposed to be done by early 2015. ED is currently on older side but as i said fully decked out technology wise. The downtown clinic is several huge buildings and serves as the basis is for all of the outpatient sub specialty clinics etc. The clinic downtown is probably one of the nicest "hospitals" I have ever seen. The entire lobby is granite and marble and there is a giant Chuhuly glass blown piece in the atrium. Wow they have a lot of money!

2) I'm not sure where else to mention this so I'll include it here. Rochester is an interesting little place and some may love it but it is certainly not for everyone. Basically everything in the town is owned by mayo which means you get discounts literally everywhere for being a mayo resident. Incredibly safe town, very quiet neighborhoods, great school system, and lots of land/space for outdoor activities. Town is small and easy to navigate, you can get from one side to the other in ten minutes. Basically life is simple and super easy/convenient in Rochester. However, the down side is that there are only like 2 nice restaurants and a couple of bars, shopping is non-existent, and there is not much to do in regards to nightlife/activities/shows.

3) Curriculum: ICU intense training with 5+ months, they claim to have one of the highest number of ICU beds in the country. Off service rotations are somewhat unique with emergency psychiatry, ortho hand, etc. I think this is one of their strong points. Whenever you are on off service or consulting other services you will literally be talking with some of the premier physicians in that respected specialty. Essentially you have the opportunity to learn from the best. This is a huge positive in my mind. 20% of didactic teaching is actually simulator based and well liked by residents, another positive. Mayo clinic is actually regional hospital for about 1 million people and thus the ED is busier than one might realize. Also, they are very active with "flight for life" air ambulance, you have opportunity to fly but not required. Peds is mixed into every month of ED so I believe this is a strong point for them given continuity of pediatric EM exposure. Lots of blunt trauma and farming accidents etc. but very little penetrating trauma. Not a county program by any means imaginable. Residents felt this wasn't a issue because while trauma can seem fun/cool, you basically just run through an algorithm and then send them to the OR.

4) Per-interview dinner: Hands down best dinner on the interview trail! Great resident turnout for dinner at fancy restaurant right by the clinic. Be prepared to stuff your face with delicious food and then take home dessert. Apparently they have a very large budget for dinner because it was awesome. Residents are all super chill and relaxed, they all seemed incredibly proud and happy to be at mayo. Great experience with them and dinner overall.

5) Interview: Started at 7:30 in lobby of hotel (everything downtown is connected by tunnels and sky bridges which is a plus in the cold weather). Chief resident toured us around mayo clinic downtown and then rode mayo shuttle to st Mary's campus for rest of interview. Two 30 minute interviews, faculty and resident, and then one 15 minute interview with PD. Very laid back and relaxed. No trick questions, just conversational. Afterwards we toured hospital, simulator center, and finished with lunch with residents. Smooth day and easy.

6) Summary: Overall I was impressed, Mayo clinic is a pretty sweet EM residency program. I have to admit that I was slightly surprised. I wasn't sure how much I would like the program. They actually have a lot to offer and some pretty cool and unique opportunities. People were really happy and seriously proud to be part of the mayo community. Here you would get good ED training and learn from the best of the best in all other specialties be it neuro, ortho, cardiac, etc. #3 hospital in the country. This opportunity would be amazing and hard to come by anywhere else. Only real negatives are less trauma and location. The town is 100k people but feels very small. I'm not a big city guy but personally there isn't enough in Rochester for me and my S.O.

I was surprised how much I liked mayo, it's a great program and will give you crazy opportunities and resources. Ultimately the one thing preventing me from ranking this in my top 3 is the town. It just personally doesn't fit for me and my S.O.
 
Hey all. I used this website a ton last year when I was applying so I figured I'd contribute a review of the department I ended up at, which is *the* Mayo. Some of these details I actually didn't know before I got here, so I hope this is helpful.

General:
-3 Year program w/ Departmental Status
-Started in 1999/2000 so about 13 years old
-I would classify us as a "University" type program, though I suppose we are technically a community program.
-Class size 8/yr. About half from the midwest. Mostly married.

Facilities:
-Emergency department is in St. Mary's Hospital, which is the original hospital that was founded by the Mayo brothers in the early 1900s. They will soon be changing the name.
-St. Mary’s hospital has 1265 beds currently, and like most hospitals, it is forever expanding. Rochester has a total of about 2000 beds and 200 ICU beds (the most ICU beds in the country). Read->We do not have trouble admitting patients.
-They are renovating and expanding the emergency department itself. We are going from 33,000 square feet to 55k. There will be 74 rooms . The entire department will be brand spankin’ new. The entire project will be complete in early 2015- Our facilities are okay now, they are definitely spacious enough. This is one of the only places I’ve been with no hallways beds. I think it is because we are able to turnover so fast b/c our number of beds is humongous and mayo is a very efficient place
-See over 80 K patients a year.
-We use PICIS EMR in the department. The hospital uses another system which is linked into PICIS. Nothing is paper anymore. Most of the patients seem to be clinic patients for their primary care, so most of your patients will have medical records already in our EMR (which is heaven).

Shifts:
-All three years shifts are 8 hours + 1 hour to wrap things up. Most people leave around that 1 hour mark, making it a total of 9 hours from door to door.
-About 20-23 shifts a month, w/ 20% peds shifts integrated, and about 2 overnight shifts a month. A few 6 hour “back-up” shifts to cover people who need to call out.
-We do one month of all night shifts (why the rest of the year we have so few). During this month we work 5 days a week. I only interviewed at one other program like this, which was Christiana. In my opinion, this is a *huge* perk.
-Shifts are done in different sections which currently include Critical (includes the trauma bay), west and east, and peds. In most sections you have your own little pod that your are in charge of flow for. We almost exclusively staff with faculty, except occasionally we will staff with the senior residents if we are in Critical. There are usually about 2 residents for every faculty member.

Trauma:
-4 trauma bays. Level 1 trauma center for peds and adult. Huge catchment area .
-EM runs the traumas on even days, surgery on odd.
-EM always does the trauma airway.
-EM does procedures alternating with surgery.
-Tons of blunt trauma. Not much penetrating. About 4000 or so activations of level 1 and 2 a year.

Curriculum:
-PGY1- 2 weeks of orientation mid June, 5 months EM regular, 1 month Em nights, SICU, MICU, Anesthesia/Psych, EMS/US, OB/GYN, Ortho
-PGY2- 5 months EM, 1 month EM nights, SICU senior, Hand surgery, PICU, Research, Elective, ICU elective
-PGY3- 8 months EM, 1 month EM nights, US, Selective, Elective
-4 hours conference 1x week + 4 hours simulation 1x month
-Levitan airway course every july
-Central line simulation/certification through mayo at the sim center
-Other labs including pig labs etc

Ancillary staff:
-Fantastic. We have a team for everything. In house pharmacy, in house PT, in house social workers. Nurses are wonderful.

Faculty:
-Young, from all over the place, so far really fun and great to work with.
-Administration is super nice, as you’ll find out if you interview with us.

Patients:
-Not very racially diverse. Tend to be white or Somali. They come from *all* over though. You will have patients who have driven 10 hours to see y*ou* in the emergency department for a second opinion.
-Pts tend to have good primary care here but you will see some really complex/weird problems.

Perks:
-51k ish /yr salary which is amazing for the cost of living here. You can live walking distance from the hospital in a great place for <1300/month.
-AMAZING healthcare benefits. I pay next to nothing and the clinic gave me 2000/yr in HSA benefits. This is something I had no idea was true.
-Ipads-we got minis! Super cute.
-Batphones-you won’t need to hunt down a secretary for everything-though we use those too.

Potential downsides:
-This place is not county. If you want knife and gun-go elsewhere. This place will not throw you to the wolves. You will practice it on a mannequin or a cadaver likely before you do it in real life. Mayo has resources and prioritizes patient safety and satisfaction-sometimes that will mean not having as much autonomy as you might have at a county program. For example everyone needs to be certified by mayo to do central lines before you can do one on an actual patient.
-You will be able to consult every kind of specialist known to man. You will be able to make outpatient dermatology appointments for patients. You will practice a type of medicine that probably does not exist almost anywhere else. The upside of this is that you will have an opportunity to ask questions of every kind of expert there is. Downside is you could rely on this and not learn to be as self reliant as possible.
-Rochester is not the place to be if you want a crazy night life, culture, or fine dining.This doesn’t really bother me b/c I’m a couch potato. I’d be happy with a movie theater, a mall, and a nice place to run(which btw Rochester has a lot of really nice trails if you are into biking or running). However, upside is that there’s no traffic and you can literally circumnavigate the city in about 10-15 mins from one end to the other. Minneapolis is about 1.5 hours away.

Overall, I love it here so far. I would be happy to answer any questions anybody has. I think there are tons of great choices out there and this is such a cool specialty you can’t really go wrong. Come and check us out though. Mayo will even pay for your hotel!!!
 
How research focused is this program? Do all residents generally do scholarly work/ is it expected etc?

Looking at Doximity (I know) ranked by research output, it looks like it's second only to BIDMC.

Also any newer reviews or thoughts? No away rotations this year so would love to hear thoughts :)
 
Biased because I trained here, but it's as research focused as you'd like. The resources are there to be involved with anything you'd like but you don't have to publish. I think I had 3-4 publications around residency.

Overall, I think it was a great experience. I was worried because I didn't think it had the biggest name within EM about 10 years ago when I started compared to some programs that had been around for decades at the time.

That said, the training was fantastic and the name resonates anywhere in the world. I was walking down a street in Paris after I'd matched and overhead some Parisians talking in French (which I can't understand aside from the few words all Americans know) and heard "Mayo Clinic" interjected in their conversation. I can guarantee that wouldn't happen with a county hospital.

Ultimately, residency is what you make of it.
 
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Biased because I trained here, but it's as research focused as you'd like. The resources are there to be involved with anything you'd like but you don't have to publish. I think I had 3-4 publications around residency.

Overall, I think it was a great experience. I was worried because I didn't think it had the biggest name within EM about 10 years ago when I started compared to some programs that had been around for decades at the time.

That said, the training was fantastic and the name resonates anywhere in the world. I was walking down a street in Paris after I'd matched and overhead some Parisians talking in French (which I can't understand aside from the few words all Americans know) and heard "Mayo Clinic" interjected in their conversation. I can guarantee that wouldn't happen with a county hospital.

Ultimately, residency is what you make of it.

Thanks! Are you working in community or academics now? And how do you think residency at Mayo affected your job prospects afterwards?
 
I'm essentially all community now but our system is integrated across the Midwest. Some do both. I do some administrative things that cross academic and community and recently published an article with some of the residents.

My guess is 70-80% do community afterwards, but I don't have exact numbers.

From a job standpoint, you can work anyplace or do any fellowship you want, keeping in mind that a lot of great jobs staff by word of mouth and familiarity with local residencies through a pipeline of previous grads.
 
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