Where do you see yourself in 10 years? I see myself as a busy academic vascular surgeon. I want to have a complex open and endovascular practice delivering the highest level of care I can and continuing to refine the skills I learned during my training. I would also love to continue producing high-quality clinical research and training my own residents and fellows.

Current location: Minneapolis, MN

What drew you to Mayo Clinic for your residency training? Mayo Clinic offers a unique apprenticeship model in which trainees are given the chance to work with a single consultant for an extended period of time. I was drawn to this model because it allowed me to develop an understanding of clinical decision-making and to see a variety of technical approaches in the operating room. In this program, I was truly immersed from day one.

Having rotated at Mayo Clinic as a visiting medical student, how did that experience shape your decision about your choice for residency? After doing multiple sub-internships, I was amazed by the volume and complexity of cases at Mayo Clinic and the autonomy afforded to the residents and fellows.  It was truly unlike anywhere else I had seen. There is a limited number of training programs in the country with a good balance of high volume open intra-abdominal and complex endovascular cases. The amount of ancillary support (nursing, midlevel providers, etc.) and coordinated patient care was also remarkable.

Is there anything that surprised you about Mayo Clinic? The most surprising thing here was how enthusiastic everyone was to share knowledge and information. There were absolutely no barriers to pursuing research or learning, and the only thing that limited what I could do was me. It was also much more multicultural than I had imagined, and it was awesome to meet people from so many different countries!