Hello to everyone.
I am a fellow in the department of neurology at the Mayo Clinic and currently finishing off to return back to my center at the Medical School at Oxford in good old England. In my spare time on the words I came across this site and noticed a bright vibrant group of students. I also saw that some were considering the Medical School at Mayo and some concerns that they and others had and thought that before I head back I'd like to share my thoughts.
I've worked at about 4 medical schools (mostly in the Northeast) in the US and most of the ones in England primarily at Oxford and Edinbourgh. From all these stints I must say that Mayo has one of the most astounding programs. The students there (only a select 40 or so I think) are so nice and extremely sharp. I've had the pleasure of working and observing some of them on the wards and I was very impressed by their training (even the residents would get worried when some of the students came around as it was sometimes the case that the student would be sharper during the grand rounds).
Furthermore, I saw that many were complaining that Mayo had too many "private" patients and didn't know what the "hands-on" situation would be as compared with some of the city-based school systems. However, that's simply not the case. I, coming from a very "hands-on" place as well had the notion that the Mayo students would be so spoiled and not know how to put the numerous lines, tubes, and catheters that I was used to -- but that notion was simply unfounded. The difference here is -- those "typical" procedures are done by teams here (like the venipuncture team and so forth) and the students are given the option to go and round with that team and do as many venipunctures as it takes to reach competency, as opposed to learning from an intern on the floor that doesn't quite remember how to do it.
There are absolutely NO private patients at Mayo. The volume here is tremendous (I sometimes see more here on a typical day than what I'd see in a good three months back home -- on one busy day we recorded 23 craniotomies). Everyone that comes here is treated on a team-based approach and are told from the beginning that, being a teaching facility, medical students, residents, and fellows would have equal access to all the procedures that they may under-go under attending supervision. Furthermore, the students are treated here as the crown-jewels of this facility (I was extremely jealous to be honest). They are taught and given as much responsibility (with precautions of course) as they want and go after. I mean, obviously a student is not going to do temporal lobectomy (although they can observe, do suction, and close and stuff like that) -- but that's the case at ANY medical school. The teaching here is superb and not just thrown on faculty (as I noticed at some other schools) -- as getting to teach is a huge screening process (the neurology chief resident that gets to give a lecture at a course is a huge honor and there's a lot of competition for that slot).
So there you have it folks. Also, Rochester is not so bad as people may think. I mean of course it's not a big city but I don't know how much time one really gets to just go and hang out ALL the time. Typicaly I think the students here go to bars and nice restaurants and movies and stuff like that. And after large blocks they'll go to Minneapolis which is an hour away. If you are big on the club and disco scene thats not immediately available. But other than that it's not so bad.
Oh yeah research. There are IMMENSE opportunities for academic medicine here at Mayo. While not so developed in the "hard-core" basic sciences like yeast/drosophila/c.elegans research and DNA replication, the other basic sciences are very good (i.e. neuro-oncology, immunology, gene-therapy, experimental therapeutics, and surpisingly they have an excellents bio-medical engineering (neuro-imaging I believe) facility.
Unfortunately I don't know if I'll be around to field any questions immediately, but I'll try to come back and see what I can answer if you have any questions. Good luck.
I am a fellow in the department of neurology at the Mayo Clinic and currently finishing off to return back to my center at the Medical School at Oxford in good old England. In my spare time on the words I came across this site and noticed a bright vibrant group of students. I also saw that some were considering the Medical School at Mayo and some concerns that they and others had and thought that before I head back I'd like to share my thoughts.
I've worked at about 4 medical schools (mostly in the Northeast) in the US and most of the ones in England primarily at Oxford and Edinbourgh. From all these stints I must say that Mayo has one of the most astounding programs. The students there (only a select 40 or so I think) are so nice and extremely sharp. I've had the pleasure of working and observing some of them on the wards and I was very impressed by their training (even the residents would get worried when some of the students came around as it was sometimes the case that the student would be sharper during the grand rounds).
Furthermore, I saw that many were complaining that Mayo had too many "private" patients and didn't know what the "hands-on" situation would be as compared with some of the city-based school systems. However, that's simply not the case. I, coming from a very "hands-on" place as well had the notion that the Mayo students would be so spoiled and not know how to put the numerous lines, tubes, and catheters that I was used to -- but that notion was simply unfounded. The difference here is -- those "typical" procedures are done by teams here (like the venipuncture team and so forth) and the students are given the option to go and round with that team and do as many venipunctures as it takes to reach competency, as opposed to learning from an intern on the floor that doesn't quite remember how to do it.
There are absolutely NO private patients at Mayo. The volume here is tremendous (I sometimes see more here on a typical day than what I'd see in a good three months back home -- on one busy day we recorded 23 craniotomies). Everyone that comes here is treated on a team-based approach and are told from the beginning that, being a teaching facility, medical students, residents, and fellows would have equal access to all the procedures that they may under-go under attending supervision. Furthermore, the students are treated here as the crown-jewels of this facility (I was extremely jealous to be honest). They are taught and given as much responsibility (with precautions of course) as they want and go after. I mean, obviously a student is not going to do temporal lobectomy (although they can observe, do suction, and close and stuff like that) -- but that's the case at ANY medical school. The teaching here is superb and not just thrown on faculty (as I noticed at some other schools) -- as getting to teach is a huge screening process (the neurology chief resident that gets to give a lecture at a course is a huge honor and there's a lot of competition for that slot).
So there you have it folks. Also, Rochester is not so bad as people may think. I mean of course it's not a big city but I don't know how much time one really gets to just go and hang out ALL the time. Typicaly I think the students here go to bars and nice restaurants and movies and stuff like that. And after large blocks they'll go to Minneapolis which is an hour away. If you are big on the club and disco scene thats not immediately available. But other than that it's not so bad.
Oh yeah research. There are IMMENSE opportunities for academic medicine here at Mayo. While not so developed in the "hard-core" basic sciences like yeast/drosophila/c.elegans research and DNA replication, the other basic sciences are very good (i.e. neuro-oncology, immunology, gene-therapy, experimental therapeutics, and surpisingly they have an excellents bio-medical engineering (neuro-imaging I believe) facility.
Unfortunately I don't know if I'll be around to field any questions immediately, but I'll try to come back and see what I can answer if you have any questions. Good luck.
