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anybody know anything about the mayo clinic's peds program and how hard it is to get into. It was difficult to get a good idea from their website.
mayo peds
- Thread starter curious monkey
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Hi,
I am a second year Peds resident here at Mayo. I had a similarly tough time when I was a medical student with trying to find out about Mayo and its program, and it didn't seem like too many peope knew much about the program. Then I met with the Chair of the Peds department where I went to medical school, and she knew the program director here at absolutely recommended I visit for an interview. I decided to go for the interview, it was a good location for me, I figured why not, and just fell in love with the place and the program. Obviously I am here now, and still am having a great time. I will try to describe it a little bit and try not to be too annoyingly enthusiastic.
Mayo is very different from most big academic centers in that it isn't in a large city, rather, a town of about 100,000 people in Southeastern Minnesota. So, you go to your rotations every day and you feel like part of this huge place, but go home to a quiet neighborhood every night. I went to medical school in a very large city, and it was a bit of a shock moving here, but have really grown to love it entirely.
The Children's Hospital here is a "hospital within a hospital", two floors of the largest hospital here, St. Mary's. We also spend time in another hospital, Rochester Methodist, which is right next to the main outpatient buildings of the Mayo Clinic. The methodist rotations are solely nursery months, since that is where all the OB care is at Mayo. There is a full staff of all subspecialists, not really because Rochester needs all these subspecialists, rather because a lot of patients travel pretty far distances to come here for treatment, and so the patient population is quite large, enough to support all those subspecialists and then some. Our general peds hospital service sees around 3/4 of its patients from the surrounding areas, a lot of Minnesota (though the University of Minnesota does get the majority of central and northern Minnesota), Northern Iowa, Western Wisconsin, and a lot of the Dakotas too. The remainder of the inpatients are usually from various places around the country and the world who have come to Mayo for care. It sounds strange but it is actually a very nice mix - you get the gen peds kids from the surrounding area, plenty of your usual asthma, dehydration, DKA admits, etc, but also a very wide variety of cases from everywhere, on both the inpatient and outpatient side. I feel like once you have treated asthma 50 times, you know how to treat asthma, and you don't need to take care of 500 more asthmatics to learn more. You may not however see some of the more rare things, those patients you would encounter 3-5 times in your career but would be deadly to miss them in a primary care setting.
The incoming class will be doing 4 months of Peds Hospital service and 2 months of NICU in our first year, and 2 months of PICU and 1 of NICU in 2nd year. All of these are q4 call, we had some q3 last year but this will be abolished by the time you guys get here. You get two electives in your first year, which I was not able to find at any other place. I was definitely interested in a subspecialty when I came here, and I relished the opportunity to do those electives before I had to start applying for those fellowships at the beginning of my 2nd year. Overall, we have 8-9 months of call in 1st year, 6-7 months in 2nd year, and 4-5 months in the 3rd year. And LOTS of elective time (2 months in 1st year, 3.5 months in 2nd year, and 5 months in 3rd year). There is no required research but it is highly recommended, and as I have learned recently, you show any interest at all, and you will have 5 projects offered to you in a heartbeat.
Our classes tend to do well in fellowship matches, I really can't explain why, but it seems we do very well. Our current 3rd year class has two people headed to Children's in Boston (NICU and Cardiology), one headed to Cincinnati (NICU), one headed to Baylor (NICU), one headed to Children's National (also NICU), one is staying as chief, two went to the Peds Neuro program here a year early, and one is in the middle of applications for ER fellowship and getting interviews pretty much everywhere. In the past two years graduating classes, we have sent 4 residents to Baylor for Cardiology, one to Hopkins for Neuro, 2 more stayed here for Neuro training, one stayed here for GI, one went to Hem Onc at Cincinnati, one to Child Abuse fellowship at Cincinnati, one stayed here for Derm, and one went to St. Louis for a comined Neph/PICU fellowsip. In the end, around 2/3 of our residents do fellowship and the rest do primary care.
Okay, sorry to ramble, now the meat that you wanted to know. I was an average student, got moderately above average board scores, but really showed an interest in Mayo once I interviewed here, and it seems they must have liked me because I matched here. The hospital is consistently ranked in the top in the country in reputation ranks, but the Peds Department here isn't as large, so the program doesn't get ranked as highly. If you look at the AAP site however, you'll note we do VERY well on the boards, we match very well in fellowship (see above), and we have much less call and more elective time than any other place I interviewed. Plus, I drive 2 minutes a day to work and park at the hospital, not at a parking lot 15 minutes away like some downtown hospitals. The people here are all extremely friendly and helpful - malignant programs are rare in Peds as it is, but this is about as far from a malignant program as you can get. It's a terrific, place to work, and I would highly recommend you at least take a look. I think the program will put you up at a hotel for free if you get an interview, and the residents take you out to dinner the night before, so you'll get a chance to see what's going on here.
As far as recruitment, I don't think they have any weird cutoff scores like some of the big places, you don't have to be a 250 Step 1 person with good evals coming out your ears, but if you want to come here I would show some interest. If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail - I will give you contact info below.
Hope this helps!
Jon
[email protected]
I am a second year Peds resident here at Mayo. I had a similarly tough time when I was a medical student with trying to find out about Mayo and its program, and it didn't seem like too many peope knew much about the program. Then I met with the Chair of the Peds department where I went to medical school, and she knew the program director here at absolutely recommended I visit for an interview. I decided to go for the interview, it was a good location for me, I figured why not, and just fell in love with the place and the program. Obviously I am here now, and still am having a great time. I will try to describe it a little bit and try not to be too annoyingly enthusiastic.
Mayo is very different from most big academic centers in that it isn't in a large city, rather, a town of about 100,000 people in Southeastern Minnesota. So, you go to your rotations every day and you feel like part of this huge place, but go home to a quiet neighborhood every night. I went to medical school in a very large city, and it was a bit of a shock moving here, but have really grown to love it entirely.
The Children's Hospital here is a "hospital within a hospital", two floors of the largest hospital here, St. Mary's. We also spend time in another hospital, Rochester Methodist, which is right next to the main outpatient buildings of the Mayo Clinic. The methodist rotations are solely nursery months, since that is where all the OB care is at Mayo. There is a full staff of all subspecialists, not really because Rochester needs all these subspecialists, rather because a lot of patients travel pretty far distances to come here for treatment, and so the patient population is quite large, enough to support all those subspecialists and then some. Our general peds hospital service sees around 3/4 of its patients from the surrounding areas, a lot of Minnesota (though the University of Minnesota does get the majority of central and northern Minnesota), Northern Iowa, Western Wisconsin, and a lot of the Dakotas too. The remainder of the inpatients are usually from various places around the country and the world who have come to Mayo for care. It sounds strange but it is actually a very nice mix - you get the gen peds kids from the surrounding area, plenty of your usual asthma, dehydration, DKA admits, etc, but also a very wide variety of cases from everywhere, on both the inpatient and outpatient side. I feel like once you have treated asthma 50 times, you know how to treat asthma, and you don't need to take care of 500 more asthmatics to learn more. You may not however see some of the more rare things, those patients you would encounter 3-5 times in your career but would be deadly to miss them in a primary care setting.
The incoming class will be doing 4 months of Peds Hospital service and 2 months of NICU in our first year, and 2 months of PICU and 1 of NICU in 2nd year. All of these are q4 call, we had some q3 last year but this will be abolished by the time you guys get here. You get two electives in your first year, which I was not able to find at any other place. I was definitely interested in a subspecialty when I came here, and I relished the opportunity to do those electives before I had to start applying for those fellowships at the beginning of my 2nd year. Overall, we have 8-9 months of call in 1st year, 6-7 months in 2nd year, and 4-5 months in the 3rd year. And LOTS of elective time (2 months in 1st year, 3.5 months in 2nd year, and 5 months in 3rd year). There is no required research but it is highly recommended, and as I have learned recently, you show any interest at all, and you will have 5 projects offered to you in a heartbeat.
Our classes tend to do well in fellowship matches, I really can't explain why, but it seems we do very well. Our current 3rd year class has two people headed to Children's in Boston (NICU and Cardiology), one headed to Cincinnati (NICU), one headed to Baylor (NICU), one headed to Children's National (also NICU), one is staying as chief, two went to the Peds Neuro program here a year early, and one is in the middle of applications for ER fellowship and getting interviews pretty much everywhere. In the past two years graduating classes, we have sent 4 residents to Baylor for Cardiology, one to Hopkins for Neuro, 2 more stayed here for Neuro training, one stayed here for GI, one went to Hem Onc at Cincinnati, one to Child Abuse fellowship at Cincinnati, one stayed here for Derm, and one went to St. Louis for a comined Neph/PICU fellowsip. In the end, around 2/3 of our residents do fellowship and the rest do primary care.
Okay, sorry to ramble, now the meat that you wanted to know. I was an average student, got moderately above average board scores, but really showed an interest in Mayo once I interviewed here, and it seems they must have liked me because I matched here. The hospital is consistently ranked in the top in the country in reputation ranks, but the Peds Department here isn't as large, so the program doesn't get ranked as highly. If you look at the AAP site however, you'll note we do VERY well on the boards, we match very well in fellowship (see above), and we have much less call and more elective time than any other place I interviewed. Plus, I drive 2 minutes a day to work and park at the hospital, not at a parking lot 15 minutes away like some downtown hospitals. The people here are all extremely friendly and helpful - malignant programs are rare in Peds as it is, but this is about as far from a malignant program as you can get. It's a terrific, place to work, and I would highly recommend you at least take a look. I think the program will put you up at a hotel for free if you get an interview, and the residents take you out to dinner the night before, so you'll get a chance to see what's going on here.
As far as recruitment, I don't think they have any weird cutoff scores like some of the big places, you don't have to be a 250 Step 1 person with good evals coming out your ears, but if you want to come here I would show some interest. If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail - I will give you contact info below.
Hope this helps!
Jon
[email protected]
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Good question. First of all would ask how you know (prior thread perhaps), and secondly will answer it.
I was (and am) engaged to a teacher who had real job offers in two other cities, Chicago and St. Louis in fact. It was very important to me that she was able to move with me when I went to residency. I gave her three programs, Mayo, U Chicago, and St. Louis, and told her that I liked those three and would be happy either way. So, she picked the first two since she had job offers. I was fairly overzealous in my residency program analysis during interviews, and had a numerical rating system designed for myself, in which those three programs all had equal scores.
I would argue that we are both much happier at Mayo, and since you know me (again, prior thread perhaps), you would probably want to know that if you ask her, she now has a full time position here and is extremely happy in Rochester. We actually get to spend time together instead of spending an hour each on the highway on the way home.
I remember being very nervous about applications and was looking at websites everywhere trying to figure out information about places, and in the end, you all just have to decide which areas you like and where you would be happy living and working. Mayo may not be right for everybody, nor is every program, but I have personally found it a terrific place to work.
Hope this helps, feel free to e-mail and ask more questions.
I was (and am) engaged to a teacher who had real job offers in two other cities, Chicago and St. Louis in fact. It was very important to me that she was able to move with me when I went to residency. I gave her three programs, Mayo, U Chicago, and St. Louis, and told her that I liked those three and would be happy either way. So, she picked the first two since she had job offers. I was fairly overzealous in my residency program analysis during interviews, and had a numerical rating system designed for myself, in which those three programs all had equal scores.
I would argue that we are both much happier at Mayo, and since you know me (again, prior thread perhaps), you would probably want to know that if you ask her, she now has a full time position here and is extremely happy in Rochester. We actually get to spend time together instead of spending an hour each on the highway on the way home.
I remember being very nervous about applications and was looking at websites everywhere trying to figure out information about places, and in the end, you all just have to decide which areas you like and where you would be happy living and working. Mayo may not be right for everybody, nor is every program, but I have personally found it a terrific place to work.
Hope this helps, feel free to e-mail and ask more questions.
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I am currently an intern at Mayo.
I love it!
I too had a hard time getting a feel for the program from the website. Come for an interview and you'll get a really good feel for the "spirit" here.
I agree with everything that the second year posted above. The volume of patients is tolerable. I have seen a very nice mix of your bread and butter peds plus rare things menkes kinky hair disease. I am challenged and I am learning a lot.
Why I came here is the people. I coudn't have found a better group of people-the residents and consultants (that is what we call attendings) I met were kind, intelligent, friendly people with interests outside of Mayo. I was expecting stuffy, pedantic folk, and found nothing of the sort.
I have found the program's people to be just as they portrayed themselves. I am in a supportive environment where people enjoy being here. We work as a team to take care of patients and also of each other. It's sounds corny, but it's true.
Feel free to PM me for more info.
Good luck!!
I love it!
I too had a hard time getting a feel for the program from the website. Come for an interview and you'll get a really good feel for the "spirit" here.
I agree with everything that the second year posted above. The volume of patients is tolerable. I have seen a very nice mix of your bread and butter peds plus rare things menkes kinky hair disease. I am challenged and I am learning a lot.
Why I came here is the people. I coudn't have found a better group of people-the residents and consultants (that is what we call attendings) I met were kind, intelligent, friendly people with interests outside of Mayo. I was expecting stuffy, pedantic folk, and found nothing of the sort.
I have found the program's people to be just as they portrayed themselves. I am in a supportive environment where people enjoy being here. We work as a team to take care of patients and also of each other. It's sounds corny, but it's true.
Feel free to PM me for more info.
Good luck!!
