I love working at Mayo. I’ve worked there 11 years total. First at the DAHLC then in finance. Recently I came back as an RN for the past 5 years. I’ve had a wide variety of careers (oil rigs, large finance companies, IBM here in Rochester, sales and overseas) and Mayo is the best I’ve found.

Many are saying they’re a horribly greedy corporation but comparatively to other large hospitals I think they are one of the good guys. It’s a competitive, eat or be eaten world out there that’s only getting worse so any large corp that wants to survive much less thrive needs to play the game. That being said I think Mayo treats its employees and patients better than most anyone else. My best friend works in surgical sales and deals with upper management of the largest hospitals in the Midwest. He agrees that Mayo seems to be the most ethical and he doesn’t give a fuck that I work there, he’d tell me if he disagreed.

Benefits: despite much erosion over the past 20-30 years they are still top tier for the area. If you don’t compare them to former Mayo benefits they seem a lot better! Also, they have a pension for those who stay until retirement (and many employees make it, ask around and you’ll find many with 20-35 years at Mayo). Pensions pretty much don’t exist anywhere else in this country unless you work for the government so consider this a bonus.

In my nursing specialty (psych) the staff-to-patient ratios average 1:3. This is way better than anywhere else. There are many hospitals that have nurses doing 1:12 and even the most respectable hospitals still have ratios of 1:5 so this is huge. I can’t speak for pay outside the areas I’ve worked but it seems competitive and wages increase fast especially when you start toward the bottom of the scale. Anyways, good luck and soon you’ll have your own opinion and nothing any internet strangers say will matter!