jordan23
OSRR Newbie
Posts: 5
(11/27/01 8:13:04 am)
Reply
Thoughts on Mayo
Interested in hearing any thoughts on the mayo program. I was invited to interview there, but it seems
as if they interview 80 people. Also, since usnews ranks this place as the number one hospital for ortho,
I would imagine it is competitive as hell to match there, and it does coincide with another date for me.
Any thoughts appreciated.
orthohopeful
OSRR Junior
Posts: 34
(11/27/01 9:46:47 am)
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Mayo thoughts
I already did an interview at mayo and I'll give you my thoughts based on two days there.
The place was downright incredible as far as resources and facilities go. The two hospitals they operate in
have 110 operating rooms! They have completely unlimited research dollars to do whatever you want.
They have surgical labs where residents can practice microvascular surgery on animals and arthroscopy
on fresh frozen cadavers whenever they want. That was very impressive to me. The really interesting
thing to me was the 1:1 faculty to resident ratio. Except on trauma rotations they are matched up with
an attending and are the only ones operating with him/her. The residents said that with some attendings
they get to do the whole case with minimal supervision and with others they don't get to do much until
they are seniors. You will hear from people elsewhere that the residents don't get enough operative
experience and that it is all academic. At the interview they make a HUGE point to show you that this
simply is not the case. They show a slide presentation and detail how many of each type of case their
residents got to do during their five years previously. It looked to me that they operate every bit as
much as anybody else. In talking with the residents (about 20 of them) none of them said that the
operative experience left anything to be desired. They have multiple attendings in every subspecialty and
you get plenty of experience to hear them tell it.
The workload seemed to be about average. The in-house call is very light except on a couple of rotations
and then it is all home call for the most part. The only drawback in their call is that they are on beeper
call 24/7 for whatever attending they are working with, so if some patient he operated on 10 years ago
wants to call the hospital on sunday afternoon while you are playing golf and his total joint is infected
then you are going in. The residency coordinator assured us that they are working on a plan to stop this
and to give residents half their weekends totally free from their beepers.
Rochester is the other drawback. There's not much happening in that town except for mayo. The winters
can be brutal up there as well. But it is cheap to live there and would be fine for someone that is married
and wants to have kids while in residency.
I liked mayo a lot and plan to rank it highly. As far as thinking it is too tough to match, I wouldn't do
that if I were you. They interview 75 or so, and they have 12 spots. There will be enough people turned
off by the climate and the small town that you probably will end up with close to a 50/50 chance if you
rank it No. 1. They specifically told us that while we were there. If you are the least bit interested I would go
on the interview.
One hint to anyone that is going up there is that the Colonial Inn across the street from the hospitals is
only 34 bucks a night. It's not particularly nice, but if you are doing as many interviews as I plan to you
need to economize If you are flying, fly into minneapolis and drive down to rochester (it is much cheaper
than flying into rochester and only an hour and a half drive).
jordan23
OSRR Intern
Posts: 6
(11/27/01 10:29:32 am)
Reply
Re: Mayo thoughts
Hey orthohopeful,
I really appreciate the response. It sounds as if your experience was quite good. As far as the operating
experience, that was another concern of mine, but I'm glad to hear that they alleviated your concerns. I
guess rochester is the big thing to get over with that program. How were your interviews structured?
Thanks again for the input, I appreciate it.
DrNukeOrthoMan
OSRR Intern
Posts: 14
(11/27/01 1:22:25 pm)
Reply
Mayo A and B teams
I have heard that at mayo the 10 residents get divided up into 2 teams A and B. This is done passively
as the B team residents just end up working with the less 'big-name' people. They get almost
'black-listed' and this lasts the duration of the residency. Any truth to this?
Ortho2002
OSRR Fellow
Posts: 86
(11/27/01 2:02:43 pm)
Reply
A and B team
Funny, I heard the same thing from a guy that did his fellowship there. Said he would never do a
residency there because of that issue.
scottydogs
OSRR Intern
Posts: 20
(11/27/01 2:11:25 pm)
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Mayo feedback
I would agree with what has been said previously about the Mayo program. Having actually rotated there
this past Fall, I was very impressed with the program. Yes, the facilities are outstanding, very impressive
faculty, nice core of residents....I would also agree with what has been said about the operative
experience for the residents. The rumor that circulates about how the residents don't operate due to the
fellows......it is simply not true. Obviously there are some faculty that don't let you do as much as
others, but you will find that everywhere.
The 1:1 ratio is a nice set up in terms of being able to interact with the faculty, however you don't get to
work with the other residents.
Living is Rochester could be a drawback if you need the big city life. Otherwise, seems like a nice place to
live for a few years.
The interview itself was completely benign. More just a "get to know you" session.
Bottomline, I'm sure they will be high on my list. Hope this helps.
Good luck. --Scottydogs.
orthohopeful
OSRR Junior
Posts: 35
(11/27/01 2:45:54 pm)
Reply
A and B teams
I heard nothing about this at all from any resident or fellow I talked to there. The curriculum was
described as very flexible, where they let people choose which attending they get for certain rotations.
Obviously not everyone gets their first choice, but they work it out. If guy No. 1 wants to go into spine and
guy #2 is interested in hand, then they get the "better" attending for their chosen subspecialty and
tradeoff in others. it seemed to work pretty well according to their 4th and 5th years. If they do this A
and B team thing up there like you have heard, then all I can say is that every single resident and fellow
was in on the conspiracy to keep that fact a secret. Myself and the other applicants had tons (almost too
much) time with the residents to probe them about the program, and nothing like that ever came out. I
actually went and played a round of golf with a couple of R2's after the interview and had a great time
and found out all I could think to ask about.
Mayo definitely has its drawbacks, but if you have no conflicts and have any interest whatsoever I'd go
on the interview.
Good luck to everyone.
jordan23
OSRR Intern
Posts: 11
(12/3/01 8:32:26 am)
Reply
Re: A and B teams
At Mayo are there 10 or 12 residents per year?
Ortho2002
OSRR Fellow
Posts: 101
(12/3/01 9:30:32 am)
Reply
# of spots
they find out in january whether they will be approved to increase from 10 to 12 spots per year. they
seem fairly confident that this will happen.
