The Cardiovascular Surgery Fellowship at Mayo Clinic's campus in Rochester, Minnesota, is offered to individuals who have successfully completed an approved thoracic surgery residency or its equivalent and desire up to three years of additional cardiothoracic surgery training.

Emphasis may be placed on any of the areas of thoracic, adult cardiac, congenital heart disease, or cardiopulmonary transplantation. For those interested in limiting their experience to one of these areas, the year is designed to provide a minimum of nine months of exposure to the field of specific interest.

During the fellowship, you participate in the preoperative evaluation, surgical repair (as first assistant), and postoperative management of virtually all of the thoracic and cardiac conditions. Due to the complexity of many of these cases, independent operative experience is not available, and operative experience under the guidance of the staff surgeon is variable, depending on the type of procedure and on your expertise.

Program history

The Cardiovascular Surgery Fellowship at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, began in 1968. Since that time, more than 160 surgeons have completed training. We anticipate that up to nine trainees will complete this program annually.