Mayo Clinic

[Guest]

What an incestual circle jerk.

[Guest]

Can anyone give experiences from residency/sub-i? What’s the volume like? Is it an apprentice model? I assume there is no trauma?

[Guest]

Mayo resident here. 

Of course I am biased, but this is a great program. I am incredibly thankful to have matched here and would do so again in a heartbeat. The training is great, and above all, despite it being a very busy practice (~5,000 cases in one hospital/year, try to find another program with that many cases in one building in a year), we have a great lifestyle as residents. Of course residency is going to be challenging no matter where you match, because the field itself is difficult and training will (and should) consume nearly all of your time and effort, especially during your junior years and your chief year. Most of what you learn in residency can't be gleaned from reading a book. You need to operate, early and often, for multiple pathologies, via multiple different approaches, while being taught by many different surgeons. The OR is everything for neurosurgery training, and that is where you should focus. Everything else is ancillary. Important in its own way, but ancillary.

That all being said, there is a list of programs that are busy enough where you will achieve the appropriate level of OR exposure. I won't go into that list, but it is made up of high volume centers where the residents get in the OR right from the start. There are some differences that make Mayo a great place to train:

-Early operative exposure. I logged 150 cases as an intern. Of course a "case" as an intern might be helping to expose and close (and driving in the pedicle screw through an already tapped tract), but anyone who tells you they are doing more than that as an intern is lying. We spend 6-months on neurosurgery as an intern, the rest of the time is rotating on the various services required for neurosurgery training. Second year residents spend some time in the neuro ICU, but also spend 9 months as a chief junior, acting as the primary resident on the chief service. This is a busy year, but most of us scrubbed 400+ cases during that year, learned a ton from the chiefs, got to do plenty in the OR, and most importantly, developed the neurosurgery mindset. 

-Apprenticeship Model. This is the most unique aspect of Mayo training. During years 3-4, you rotate through the attending services, usually being assigned to 2 separate attendings at a time. You operate every day of the week, multiple cases per day, and you are the primary assistant to the attending for the entire 3 month rotation. This is great because by the end of 3 months, the attending begins to trust you and knows your ability, so you get to do the critical portion of the procedure. I was splitting the fissure to clip aneurysms, throwing bypass sutures and drilling out the optic nerve as a 4th year (sounds like a brag I know, but just stating the facts of why the apprenticeship model is great). Under the close supervision of the attending of course, but you're still doing the critical portion. You will do another 400+ cases per year in years 3 and 4. I finished all of my ACGME case requirements mid-way through year 4.

-Enfolded fellowships. Right now you can complete several enfolded fellowships during training, usually during your 5th/6th/7th years. This helps to decrease the overall time of training if you don't have to do another year after residency.

-Chief Year. This is really a transition to practice year. You have your own clinic and your own OR, so you are able to sign up elective cases in clinic and take them to the OR. You staff the case with an attending, but it is your case, and you will be doing it. Your service also handles the trauma admissions and trauma surgeries. Someone asked about neurotrauma at Mayo. I will just say that it is busy enough. You won't leave the program wishing you saw more trauma (either brain or spine), that much I can assure you. Your cup will overflow, ha. The chief year might be one of the best parts of the program. It is a full year, and most of our graduates state that this year was incredibly helpful in preparing them for practice.

-Research. Plenty of opportunities. Multiple funded labs, and nearly every resident is doing research and publishing. One of our residents is getting a PhD during training. Mayo is very helpful in providing funding for national meetings. If you get an abstract accepted for a talk or poster (pretty easy), you can get travel funding from Mayo to go to the meeting. I have gone to both national meetings every year of training except one. 

-Rochester. People love to hate on Rochester, but it's actually a great place to live for residents. Everyone owns a house, and no matter where you live in Rochester you can be to the hospital garage in 10-15 minutes. Your money goes a long way here. If you want to go to a show, or do something big city style, Minneapolis/St. Paul is an hour away. Many residents will go up to the cities for a weekend. Rochester is a very healthy city and there is a lot to do outside when it is anytime other than Jan/Feb. Sure it's cold during those months, but everyone is inside then anyway. Frankly you shouldn't worry about the outside temperature, because it's going to be 68 degrees and fluorescent in the OR every day, and that's where you want to be. At any rate, if you are that concerned about it being cold, and that is a serious motivator as to where you want to train, you might want to look elsewhere, we would rather take the resident who is motivated to train and doesn't complain about it snowing outside. If that concerns you, maybe neurosurgery isn't the right field for you. When you are sitting outside in January in nice sunshine at 2PM just wishing you were in the OR operating and learning, you will regret focusing so heavily on whether or not it is cold in Rochester.



Overall it is a great program, with great faculty as well as excellent operative training and plenty of research experiences. You won't regret doing a Sub-I and/or applying here.

[Guest]

^i wish more residents made posts like this. Thanks. Exactly the type of stuff some of us want to know.

[vmtrinka]

Hi folks, I recently completed a neurosurgery sub-I in Mayo Clinic. It was a terrific experience and met lots of wonderful and highly accomplished people. I am happy to answer any questions about the rotation. Good luck y'all

[Guest]

(12-13-2017, 01:43 PM)vmtrinka Wrote: Hi folks, I recently completed a neurosurgery sub-I in Mayo Clinic. It was a terrific experience and met lots of wonderful and highly accomplished people. I am happy to answer any questions about the rotation. Good luck y'all

Just post a review I  the usual format

[Guest]

(12-13-2017, 01:43 PM)vmtrinka Wrote: Hi folks, I recently completed a neurosurgery sub-I in Mayo Clinic. It was a terrific experience and met lots of wonderful and highly accomplished people. I am happy to answer any questions about the rotation. Good luck y'all

how come so late?

[Guest]

what is the open vascular volume like at mayo? how about epilepsy?

[guest29237]

(02-11-2018, 01:26 PM)Guest Wrote: what is the open vascular volume like at mayo? how about epilepsy?

Mayo Rochester has to send their residents to Mayo Jax to get vascular experience. They're not getting any emergent aneurysms in that tiny town.

[Guest]

How many away med students rotate through mayo in a year?