Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science Rochester Program

Program Identity & Fit

Mayo Clinic's Orthopedic Surgery Residency in Rochester is a tertiary/quaternary academic powerhouse built on a distinctive one-on-one mentorship model, pairing each resident with a single consultant surgeon for the duration of every 13-week subspecialty rotation rather than a team-based hierarchy. The program is research-intensive by structure, not aspiration: residents produce well over 100 publications and presentations annually, have access to the world's largest Total Joint Registry, ten dedicated basic-science labs with ~$7M in annual funding, and can pursue an integrated Master's Research Program or Clinician-Investigator Training Program without extending training. Clinical volume is extraordinary (14,000 surgeries/year, 66,000+ patients, a 1,265-bed Level-1 trauma center) and subspecialty-driven, with faculty who are field-leading authorities (Hip/Knee Society presidents, AAOS leadership) across every division. Nearly all graduates pursue subspecialty fellowship training at top national institutions, and roughly 30% ultimately remain in academic practice, reflecting a program built to produce both technically excellent private-practice surgeons and academic subspecialists.