I am a Mayo medical student currently interviewing for psychiatry residency and would be happy to answer questions regarding Mayo's program. To respond to the initial post, the Mayo Clinic has traditionally been very FMG and DO friendly (in most specialties, not just psychiatry). That said, they are also quite selective about the quality of residents regardless of nationality. In the psychiatry program, there are actually few FMGs per year...usually 1 (this year's intern class has 2 residents from Puerto Rico, but that still makes them American medical graduates).
The program typically has 0-1 osteopaths per year; as seen by the fact that one of them is a chief (the other chief is an MD-PhD, for what it is worth), they do well in residency and often add a unique perspective in the midst of allopathic training.
It is true that residents have left the program in the past. The ones that I know who transferred were from California, liked the residency program well enough, but hated the cold weather and the less urban atmosphere. One transferred to UCLA-NPI; the other went to another CA program. I only know of one other person who left (also from the west coast), but did so after struggling in the residency for a few years...I am not sure what she is doing now. I would agree that residents leaving a program en masse is concerning. I am not sure what to make of residents who leave for geographical reasons (did they not notice it was twenty below zero with a conspicuous lacking of palm trees when they interviewed?).
The program director is leaving his post as training director but remaining at Mayo. He had been director for 7 years (twice the average length for a training director per the letter that was sent via ERAS to applicants). He is a great person and will be around for mentoring, as far as I know. There are several other interesting new-er faculty members that may replace him.
Minneapolis takes me 1 hour to drive from my house in Rochester to the midst of the downtown area or U-MN campus. There is no traffic EVER so it is easy to catch up on phone calls, etc., while driving through the cornfields. I am currently rotating in Evanston, IL, and it takes me at least an hour to even get to downtown Chicago, so it is all pretty relative. Most of my friends who are Mayo residents go to Minneapolis a few times per month so there is always someone to go with and new places to explore. We are able to drive there in an hour year-round. Snow happens in Minnesota, but Rochester gets fairly little snow (1-2 snowings per season typically, nothing close to what Denver or the Great Lakes get), but people can and do drive even when there is snow.
Rochester is a small-ish town but there are 85,000-90,000 people, so it has the essentials...good independent co-op with organic foods, decent Mexican/Italian/Indian/Thai restaurants, as well as a few upscale American/French places. There are decent gyms, movie theatres, grocery stores, shopping mall. It is safe (my wallet has been returned to me a few times after losing it with all money etc. in it). It takes five minutes to drive anywhere in town. It is cold (January is often hovering around zero, except this year, when it has rarely been below freezing), but summer is often in the 80s and 90s (June-Sept). It is cheap...most residents own homes (typical range is $100,000-170,000 for a large condo or house...I pay $700 mortgage for a 5 bedroom house). There is an International Film Festival, Gay Pride Festival, Rochester Fest, etc., for random mid-year entertainment. It is fairly white (Caucasian) but with growing Somali and Hmong immigrant populations and a large international patient and physician base. The city suffers by not having a four year university but there are a few decent independent theaters and most Broadway shows do one performance locally on their way to or from Minneapolis. The area is flat...there is ok hiking 1/2 hour away, as well as kayaking. But mountains and ocean are out of the question.
Residents have NO call their fourth year of residency. It is true that they take overnight call only during year 3, but they have organized a night float system so they are on call for one week of nights and off for the entire next day without clinical duties AT ALL during their call week. This weekly schedule rotates every 7 weeks (so you are on call one week every 2 months). Some people love it since they feel that they know the system much better as third years; some don't love it but find the lumped calls much more tolerable than q7 scheduling. For years 1 and 2, there are several call-free months (1/4 to 1/3 of each year is completely call-free).
Most residents I know are happy. They have the typical gripes of residents but the program is fairly responsive to change and I have not met anyone who was outwardly miserable or wished that they were training elsewhere.
Faculty are the highlight of the program...mentoring runs deep in a wide variety of areas within psychiatry. Research is prevalent and residents go to conferences that they are presenting at for free (and one free conference for attendance only). International rotations are funded by Mayo, as are rotations at Mayo Jacksonville or Scottsdale (especially nice when scheduled for the winter months). There is a great deal of flexibility first and second year to do peds, peds neuro, and more/less child/adolescent psych or acute psych (psychosis) if desired (everyone I know that has requested specific variations has been accomodated).
The chairperson is very biologically oriented and a strong figure in child psych nationally. He has bolstered the psychogenomics program but the residency is in no way biologically slanted. Most psychiatrists I know there do clinical research and are very solid supervisors for psychotherapy (especially psychodynamically oriented therapy and DBT). Clinical psychologists in the program provide additional supervision if desired and have strengths in CBT, IPT, mindfulness-based therapy. A few residents each year take classes at the Minnesota Psychoanalytic Institute.
Things that some people do not like about Mayo:
--formality....in lieu of white coats, most people wear suits. That said, most psychiatry residents get away with wearing a bit more casual attire.
--cold weather in the winter
--call during the third year of residency (please see note above)
--the town not being large enough
--the more conservative environment of the Mayo Clinic. But as the Clinic offers same sex partner benefits (health, health club, dental, vision, etc.) and democrats swept the recent local/state elections, it isn't exactly the worst out there.
--no in-house moonlighting. About half of the residents moonlight in years 3 and 4, but sites can be somewhat limited and require a 30-60 minute drive.
Things some people especially like about Mayo:
--solid didactics and mentoring
--preference regarding supervisors
--great benefits included with being at Mayo, especially reimbursed conference trips, health club, international rotation, free parking, well-loaded meal card for call meals, computer/cell phone/clothing movie theater corporate discounts, medical license funded, etc.
--flexibility with exposure to peds/child psych
--beautiful stand-alone psychiatry hospital with underground connection to the rest of the hospital system
--strong consult-liason psych due to a huge tertiary care setting (including some very odd zebras given the uber-specialization of the medical and surgical departments at Mayo)
--fairly wide variety of research opportunities for residents
--ease of living in Rochester (some find it boring, some find it a relief after dealing with urban commutes previously)...along with low cost of living, friendliness of staff and neighbors, safety of area, etc.
--fellowships in most areas of psych (psychosomatics, child, addictions, sleep)
--kindness and accessability of faculty, many of whom are very accomplished (not only in psych but other specialties as well)
I would definitely not have huge concerns staying at Mayo for residency. It is not without problems (I would worry about residency programs that are unable to identify issues that they are working on), but the training is solid, the resources are amazing, and the department appears to have been expanding for the better over the past few years. Please PM me if you have any specific questions.
