Thank you for your interest in the Critical Care Anesthesiology Fellowship at Mayo Clinic’s campus in Rochester, Minnesota! Our fellows love the small-town safety and conveniences paired with the big-city entertainment and diverse restaurants Rochester has to offer, and we think you will, too.

Rochester provides the perfect environment outside the hospital to support your learning and training inside the hospital. Parking is abundant and housing is affordable. It takes less than 10 minutes to get from any part of the city to another. Rush hour is nonexistent. There has been a growth of new restaurants and venues in the last five years. There are abundant state parks and outdoor recreational activities minutes from the hospital. Nowhere else can you crash someone onto ECMO, walk out the door, and go apple picking five minutes later with your friends and family at an orchard on the outskirts of town.

There’s no getting around it: living close to most top-tier academic medical centers is expensive. Sometimes really expensive. But not at Mayo. Rochester has a lower cost of living than almost anywhere else you’ll train. When comparing Rochester’s median rent to other cities with top tier medical centers, Rochester is the lowest by far. Just imagine what you could do on the weekends with a couple extra thousand dollars a month. That’s real money you can spend on your off time to support your well-being and health or even take a trip somewhere to see family and friends.

“But the winters . . .” Yes, it gets cold. But you knew that already. What you probably don’t know is that there are tons of winter activities.

• Quarry Hill is our local nature reserve with endless trails and inexpensive ski rentals for quick and invigorating cross-country skiing.
• Every February, the downtown main street turns into an icy oasis filled with pop-up bars, ice sculptures, vibrant lights, and partygoers for the annual Social-ICE.
• We are the land of previous Scandinavian immigrants, and the culture of hygge is alive and well in the winter. Grab some coffee and cake, find a fire, and learn to fika as the locals do. There’s nothing more relaxing. 
• Several ski slopes, snow tubing, and sledding hills are less than an hour away from the hospital.
• The downtown public track is flooded every winter and becomes a skating rink. The city provides free ice skate rentals. If you’re lucky, you might even get free hot chocolate when the police stop by for community outreach.
• If you simply can’t stand the cold, there are endless underground tunnels and heated walkways, and all our fellows have the opportunity to train in Arizona and Florida during the winter.

Rochester is an effortless city to live in, with plenty of activities and venues. If big-city attractions are a must, Minneapolis is just over an hour north. By training at Mayo, you’ll actually have the time, money, and flexible schedule to get away if needed. No more sacrificing housing for an easy commute or being surrounded by entertainment but giving up all your discretionary income on rent (or having to moonlight to make up the difference.)

What’s the point of being surrounded by countless attractions if you’re working 79 hours a week for the majority of the year and can’t get off to see them? Training at Mayo and living in Rochester gives you the best of everything. 

Ben Daxon, M.D.
Program Director
Assistant Professor, Mayo School of Graduate Medical Education
Consultant, Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine