I was a medical student there (graduated in 05) and had a few friends stick around to do the program due to family reasons. It has never been a powerful or desirable program and, according to my friends that stayed, the new chair hasn't made things any better. Part of the problem is the institution; the department of surgery has always been very strong there and they tend to push and get their way. There has never been much of an academic presence there, which doesn't help things. Their practice is sort of an academic/private hybrid, and they haven't published anything in years (I can't verify this for sure, but I read A/A and Anesthesiology religiously, and in 4 years I haven't seen one article from there). One of the concerns raised by my friend that did residency there was that the classes were so small, and the rotation locations so many, you never really saw your peers and there was never really a critical mass of residents around; most of the cases are done by CRNAs. The hours weren't bad, though, and there are a few really good groups in town that would probably hire U of MN grads (although they take a lot more from Mayo).
