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Program Reviews
- Thread starter MS4TIME
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Appreciate your input. Have to admit I was going to rank this program very high. Would you say you regret going to MAyo in the end? The interview will be interesting as this seems to be a polar opposite to Adcadet's previous posts (both opinions are totally appreciated and completely valid).
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What were the other programs?
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let's keep the program reviews in the designated stickied file on top of the forum. this is ggreat but let's keep it all in one place!!
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see above.
the thread should be renamed the Rant about Mayo Rochester...just kidding.
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As requested I've got my comments, which I've tried to line up with Docrocmayo's. I'm a PGY1 at Mayo Rochester, so my experience is more limited than Docroc's.
Per faculty member Mayo certainly seems to have fewer big grants (RO1s) compared to research-based universities, but that's because there are many who do next to no research and many who prefer a healthy mix of patient care and research. For what I want to do I've certainly found a good number of people with serious NIH funding, and I think it's awesome that Mayo has some internal funding for smaller project and to start research. And have you seen the number of faculty we've got?! 140-160 cardiologists last I heard! Not all of them are hard-core researchers.
The 4 fellows I've worked with have ranged from OK to amazing. No complaints from me so far, and certainly no friction. Intern year you only spend 3 months on rotations with ANY fellows (CCU, MICU, and Onc), the rest being all resident teams including cardiology. The rumors of this program being "fellow run" are just not true as residents are usually not on teams that even have a fellow.
I've been very happy with our administration. With a big program we can afford to have the resources to put together a great office staff (including Vicky but also many more people) and infrastructure.
We do have a "new" PD, who took over in August I think. True, he did his intern year at Hopkins, but the rest of his training was at Mayo... including a number of years as an Associate PD so he's really not new to the program. We have six APDs, and the other 5 are still onboard so the core leadership team has hardly changed. I spent two weeks on service with the new PD, and I certainly didn't find him "weird" to work with. He was the single most resident-focused faculty member I've ever worked with anywhere. Nobody has ever shown such an understanding of what it is to be a busy intern on a busy service nor shown such respect and collegiality with all members of the team, including the interns. I never found him to be an "unreasonable" taskmaster, even on days when we had no senior resident and he had to function as both the attending and senior resident. Even when he would page you in the middle of the work day, he would always quickly excuse himself so we could get the work done. His first day on service he said maybe 30 words while rounding as he didn't want to bog us down as he was getting to know the patients - he wanted to stay out of our way and let our senior lead the team. If he ever sounded like as taskmaster, it was because he was making sure our patients got all the things done that would provide high quality care - something I want my attendings to do. He gave some very high quality, really interesting short sit down talks when we had time and didn't do them when we didn't. He was open to feedback. He joked with us when appropriate. I would love to work with him again. The "old" PD, and the PD before him are still around, accessible, and probably still writing good letters of recommendation for residents that they know. I think Mayo handles transition extremely well.
Our Chair is also moving on to bigger and better things but will stick around, but as mentioned, we have little contact with him. As stated in a resident's meeting, the Chair has historically always been a big supporter of the residency, and nobody sees that changing anytime soon.
But yes, Mayo is in transition, as it always is. I'd be scared to be at a program that doesn't change. We are in the middle of a large restructuring process of our inpatient services. The three interns I've talked to this week have all said that overall it's been a very positive change.
Certainly not my experience. So far I have 3 case write ups in progress (one submitted, two almost ready to submit), and may have a fourth depending on some further tests.
Consults and specialty clinics at Mayo are also amazing but I don't think they detract from our education. The number of sub-specialty clinics is just mind-blowing - pancreatitis clinic, endocrine thyroid clinic, endocrine osteoporosis/Vitamin D/calcium clinic, Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Clinic, Pulmonary Hypertension Clinic, etc etc. These rare patients still need to see their primary doc (us) in continuity clinic. I find it really cool to be able to send my patients to some of the world experts in these rarer conditions, because they come back with great consult notes that teach me how to manage these rare patients, and it's very reassuring knowing that you've got world class backup if your patient needs it. So far I've never had a sub-sub specialist take over the care of any of my patients when it seems like I should still be managing their disease of interest.
Most people find Rochester to be a very affordable, comfortable city to live in. Many, perhaps most residents, can afford to buy a house and choose to do so. Most people's drive in to work is ~10 minutes from driveway to parking ramp. It's also a great city to have kids. We also have single folks, who seem to do just fine. I'm not sure about our fertility rate, but it does seem like people find to to have kids.
The inpatient world is moving to computerized order entry. The last of the major inpatient units will be switched to CPOE on December 5, 2007, and I would imagine that by the time the incoming class arrives we will hardly remember the paper forms. People say there's a learning curve, but after a week it's faster, and people I've spoken to like it. The computer system is also an interesting mix of programs, but overall it provides remarkable functionality. I would love having a single program, but most people are pretty comfortable using the programs (n=4 at most, not a million) after a few weeks. Computer logon time was recently significantly shortened as we can now choose to log on to an "office session" with everything loaded, or a "patient care" session with a reduced set of programs at start up. Logon time on the slowest computers in the hallways now takes <30 seconds. Logon in the clinic, where we have large widescreen monitors (24" widescreens I believe) takes about 10 seconds.
And we're also moving to electronic daily notes. Currently admit notes and D/C summaries are electronic, and attendings can choose to dictate (or type, I suppose) their daily notes into the computer system whereas resident notes are paper (later scanned in) on all floors but neuro. The neuro pilot is going well from what I hear, and like CPOE, my guess is that by the time the new interns arrive we'll be doing daily notes on all floors.
I would guess the occasional Creighton on the match list is because people are moving back home for fellowships - we do draw a big midwestern crowd.
To give people an idea of how quickly and efficiently Mayo can move - I had a patient come in for a hospital follow up the other week who was not doing well. I got a CBC, 'lytes, BNP, troponin, ABG, 12 lead ECG with a 30 second 12-lead rhythm strip, and PA & L chest x-ray - all results, including the chest x-ray images and official radiology read, were available within 60 minutes of me ordering these tests. At other places I would have had to send him to the ED, but I could get all this done easily from my continuity clinic and all during a normal work day. I wasn't even later for dinner! No matter how old-fashioned some of the things at Mayo may seem, no matter how cumbersome you think it is to have to use 4 computer programs, the Mayo system works very well.
I think of our program as elite. So far I've found the hands-on training to be solid. It sounds like Docrocmayo's idea of good clinical training is more like a typical VA (poor ancillary services where residents have to do everything, yet he ironically complains of paperwork). My idea of good clinical training is the appropriate caseloads (which we now have from what I can tell), interesting diseases (which we definitely have), good residents to work with (which I think we have), great ancillary staff to let you focus on being the doctor (which we definitely have; I've never had to take precious time away from my H&Ps to start an IV or transport a patient), great attendings (which we certainly have), and a program to get you to that next stage in your life/training (which I think Mayo does very well). Sure, we're not perfect, but no program is.
I haven't taken a single exam yet (well, other than the In Training Exam), which is fine by me. I agree that didactics are great.
I can't comment on GI, but for the Mayo cardiology program sure seems to like taking their own. All 8 slots in cardiology in the match went to Mayo residents.
Yes and no. I get the feeling that most people push themselves hard to deliver great patient care. If you're going to do overnight call, I really like our late start program. With the new census caps I think our patient load will be very manageable.
I guess. I think many people at the elite program plan on doing a fellowship or something "special" during or after training and I think we're no different. I prefer seeing more weird cases and I certainly have seen enough bread and butter cases on various rotations.
Resources to send residents to conferences can't be beat.
Per faculty member Mayo certainly seems to have fewer big grants (RO1s) compared to research-based universities, but that's because there are many who do next to no research and many who prefer a healthy mix of patient care and research. For what I want to do I've certainly found a good number of people with serious NIH funding, and I think it's awesome that Mayo has some internal funding for smaller project and to start research. And have you seen the number of faculty we've got?! 140-160 cardiologists last I heard! Not all of them are hard-core researchers.
The 4 fellows I've worked with have ranged from OK to amazing. No complaints from me so far, and certainly no friction. Intern year you only spend 3 months on rotations with ANY fellows (CCU, MICU, and Onc), the rest being all resident teams including cardiology. The rumors of this program being "fellow run" are just not true as residents are usually not on teams that even have a fellow.
Agree, applicants should ask this question, but I would guess that 90% of the residents are satisfied with their number of procedures. As I said earlier, the Class of 2007 would have had 100% of their class meeting the old ABIM guidelines. I have not heard this rumor about Methodist and I'm not sure how much faith to put in that.
I've been very happy with our administration. With a big program we can afford to have the resources to put together a great office staff (including Vicky but also many more people) and infrastructure.
We do have a "new" PD, who took over in August I think. True, he did his intern year at Hopkins, but the rest of his training was at Mayo... including a number of years as an Associate PD so he's really not new to the program. We have six APDs, and the other 5 are still onboard so the core leadership team has hardly changed. I spent two weeks on service with the new PD, and I certainly didn't find him "weird" to work with. He was the single most resident-focused faculty member I've ever worked with anywhere. Nobody has ever shown such an understanding of what it is to be a busy intern on a busy service nor shown such respect and collegiality with all members of the team, including the interns. I never found him to be an "unreasonable" taskmaster, even on days when we had no senior resident and he had to function as both the attending and senior resident. Even when he would page you in the middle of the work day, he would always quickly excuse himself so we could get the work done. His first day on service he said maybe 30 words while rounding as he didn't want to bog us down as he was getting to know the patients - he wanted to stay out of our way and let our senior lead the team. If he ever sounded like as taskmaster, it was because he was making sure our patients got all the things done that would provide high quality care - something I want my attendings to do. He gave some very high quality, really interesting short sit down talks when we had time and didn't do them when we didn't. He was open to feedback. He joked with us when appropriate. I would love to work with him again. The "old" PD, and the PD before him are still around, accessible, and probably still writing good letters of recommendation for residents that they know. I think Mayo handles transition extremely well.
Our Chair is also moving on to bigger and better things but will stick around, but as mentioned, we have little contact with him. As stated in a resident's meeting, the Chair has historically always been a big supporter of the residency, and nobody sees that changing anytime soon.
But yes, Mayo is in transition, as it always is. I'd be scared to be at a program that doesn't change. We are in the middle of a large restructuring process of our inpatient services. The three interns I've talked to this week have all said that overall it's been a very positive change.
Certainly not my experience. So far I have 3 case write ups in progress (one submitted, two almost ready to submit), and may have a fourth depending on some further tests.
Consults and specialty clinics at Mayo are also amazing but I don't think they detract from our education. The number of sub-specialty clinics is just mind-blowing - pancreatitis clinic, endocrine thyroid clinic, endocrine osteoporosis/Vitamin D/calcium clinic, Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Clinic, Pulmonary Hypertension Clinic, etc etc. These rare patients still need to see their primary doc (us) in continuity clinic. I find it really cool to be able to send my patients to some of the world experts in these rarer conditions, because they come back with great consult notes that teach me how to manage these rare patients, and it's very reassuring knowing that you've got world class backup if your patient needs it. So far I've never had a sub-sub specialist take over the care of any of my patients when it seems like I should still be managing their disease of interest.
Most people find Rochester to be a very affordable, comfortable city to live in. Many, perhaps most residents, can afford to buy a house and choose to do so. Most people's drive in to work is ~10 minutes from driveway to parking ramp. It's also a great city to have kids. We also have single folks, who seem to do just fine. I'm not sure about our fertility rate, but it does seem like people find to to have kids.
The inpatient world is moving to computerized order entry. The last of the major inpatient units will be switched to CPOE on December 5, 2007, and I would imagine that by the time the incoming class arrives we will hardly remember the paper forms. People say there's a learning curve, but after a week it's faster, and people I've spoken to like it. The computer system is also an interesting mix of programs, but overall it provides remarkable functionality. I would love having a single program, but most people are pretty comfortable using the programs (n=4 at most, not a million) after a few weeks. Computer logon time was recently significantly shortened as we can now choose to log on to an "office session" with everything loaded, or a "patient care" session with a reduced set of programs at start up. Logon time on the slowest computers in the hallways now takes <30 seconds. Logon in the clinic, where we have large widescreen monitors (24" widescreens I believe) takes about 10 seconds.
And we're also moving to electronic daily notes. Currently admit notes and D/C summaries are electronic, and attendings can choose to dictate (or type, I suppose) their daily notes into the computer system whereas resident notes are paper (later scanned in) on all floors but neuro. The neuro pilot is going well from what I hear, and like CPOE, my guess is that by the time the new interns arrive we'll be doing daily notes on all floors.
I would guess the occasional Creighton on the match list is because people are moving back home for fellowships - we do draw a big midwestern crowd.
To give people an idea of how quickly and efficiently Mayo can move - I had a patient come in for a hospital follow up the other week who was not doing well. I got a CBC, 'lytes, BNP, troponin, ABG, 12 lead ECG with a 30 second 12-lead rhythm strip, and PA & L chest x-ray - all results, including the chest x-ray images and official radiology read, were available within 60 minutes of me ordering these tests. At other places I would have had to send him to the ED, but I could get all this done easily from my continuity clinic and all during a normal work day. I wasn't even later for dinner! No matter how old-fashioned some of the things at Mayo may seem, no matter how cumbersome you think it is to have to use 4 computer programs, the Mayo system works very well.
I think of our program as elite. So far I've found the hands-on training to be solid. It sounds like Docrocmayo's idea of good clinical training is more like a typical VA (poor ancillary services where residents have to do everything, yet he ironically complains of paperwork). My idea of good clinical training is the appropriate caseloads (which we now have from what I can tell), interesting diseases (which we definitely have), good residents to work with (which I think we have), great ancillary staff to let you focus on being the doctor (which we definitely have; I've never had to take precious time away from my H&Ps to start an IV or transport a patient), great attendings (which we certainly have), and a program to get you to that next stage in your life/training (which I think Mayo does very well). Sure, we're not perfect, but no program is.
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I am a PGY 3 resident at Mayo. I have found the program to be outstanding. With regard to fellowship opportunities, I was able to secure interviews at many prestigious cardiology fellowship programs as were my classmates. I decided to stay at Mayo. Mayo residents have been extremely successful at attaining fellowship positions at many of the top programs in any of the specialties including GI. One of my good friends is staying here and a number of the current GI fellows trained here as well so Mayo does take it's own into the GI program.
I would choose Mayo if I had to do it over.
I would choose Mayo if I had to do it over.
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Yup, agree at least in theory. People also need to keep in mind that I've now been in the program for ~5 months and so my perspective is limited. People applying to the program need to talk to as many current residents as they can to get a range of opinions.
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hmmm. so I wasn't that scared about the initial post... every place has disgruntled residents who, at times, think their program must be the worst. but I am definitely more than a little freaked out by the somewhat "big brother" twist that this thread took. yikes. I hope, for the sake of the poster, that "witch hunt" was an exaggeration.
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Well, I can't speak for Docrocmayo, but from the meeting minutes that he referred to, "witch hunt" clearly sounds like an exaggeration. I see no mention of an attempt to discover his/her identity or what would happen if he/she were identified. Granted, I wasn't at the meeting he/she mentions, but the discussion seemed to focus on how inconsistent these comments are with other's experience, and how arrangements can be made to give individuals more exposure to procedures if they want more procedural experience.
I think this thread just illustrates the need to get opinions from as many people as you can.
I think this thread just illustrates the need to get opinions from as many people as you can.
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wow...the reach that sdn has is scary. I never appreciated how many attendings, chairs, and P.D.s are actually reading these threads.
On a positive note, I feel very lucky to be able to see/experience Mayo Clinic first hand and form my own opinions.
On a positive note, I feel very lucky to be able to see/experience Mayo Clinic first hand and form my own opinions.
