Registered Nurse

Rochester Regional Health chief Medical Officer Dr. Robert Mayo retiring after 13 years. Jennifer Lewke News10NBC Updated: 3 hours ago Published: March 30, 2026 - 1:45 PM New top doctor coming to Rochester Regional Health. ROCHESTER, N.Y. - Rochester Regional Health will soon have a new top doctor. Chief Medical Officer Dr. Robert Mayo is retiring. News10NBC Investigative Reporter Jennifer Lewke has interviewed Dr. Mayo dozens of times over the last decade about issues that impact the entire health care system, most notably the COVID-19 pandemic. The first time most people heard the name Dr. Robert Mayo, Whec 10 were heading into an unprecedented global pandemic. Dr. Mayo was a calm and steady voice, week after week, providing updated information on an ever-changing situation alongside his counterpart at UR Medicine. He says the pandemic showed that even competitors can and should team up when it's in the best interest of the community. "There was a great deal of help, people stepped forward and it was really heartwarming, I felt very supported and I was grateful that we could accomplish what was needed for the community at that time," Mayo said. The years that have followed haven't been easy. News10NBC has reported extensively that all of its hospitals are at or over capacity most days and the ERs are overcrowded. "Some of those challenges still exist today and we are continuing to work on them through our community partnerships with our long-term care facilities, with those that are owned with RRH and we're constantly trying to find ways to improve efficiency and care delivery," Mayo said. Some of those new ways include a lot more technology in health care compared to when Dr. Mayo first took the helm 13 years ago. "The community will see more and more aspects of AI and robotic type care in the future," Mayo said. As for his future, well, Dr. Mayo will still be serving others in retirement. "My wife and I think of Rochester as our home, we will be temporarily relocating for three years while we serve in a missionary capacity so we're looking forward to changing our focus for a time and then returning to Rochester," Mayo said. As chief medical officer at Rochester Regional Health, Dr. Mayo oversaw not just the clinical care at Rochester General, but at RRH's eight other local hospitals and health care centers. Dr. Leslie Wong will take over for Dr. Mayo starting Tuesday. He was recruited to Rochester by Dr. Mayo a few years ago. He's a nationally recognized nephrologist.

Rochester hospital system rolls out peer counseling program for staff. ROCHESTER, N.Y. - Rochester Regional Health has launched a new peer support program across its health system to help employees cope with workplace stress. Dr. Brian Watkins is a general surgeon at Rochester Regional Health. He saves lives every day in the operating room, but he's lost patients too and that can take an emotional toll. "When you think about physicians and surgeons, in particular, you think of a stoic person, a gritty person because to get to that point you kind of have to have that and there's not a lot of emotional training in your training," Dr. Watkins explains. It was something that always bothered him, "we've normalized this toxic stress in medicine for a long time, it just wasn't a topic people talked about," Dr. Watkins says. That's what led him to create a peer support group among his fellow surgeons. The confidential program allows colleagues to talk through difficult experiences with someone who understands. "It's coffee, it's a phone call, it's meeting for a bite, it's very, very informal and just that human interaction with someone who has been in your shoes to help you navigate some of things you might be going through," Dr. Watkins says. The program has been so successful, it's being expanded system wide. Thirty peers with different job titles were recently trained to help others - doctors are paired with doctors, nurses with nurses, social workers, food service workers - anyone who might need or want the help. The program is called PIER, which stands for Partners in Emotional and Recovery. Levi Gangi, coordinator of RRH Behavioral Health, says co-workers can relate in ways that loved ones sometimes can't. "If you go home and talk to your loved ones, they might be sympathetic, but they don't work in the setting, but your coworkers can relate to what you're talking about," Gangi tells News10NBC. So far, the PIER team has worked with many employees who don't necessarily ask for help but are willing to accept it when someone reaches out. Gangi said peer responders can proactively contact employees after learning about difficult events. "Even if somebody doesn't reach in and say "hey, I need support," we would be able to hear about an event that happened and have one of our peer responders reach out to them directly and then they could say, "yeah I'd like to talk confidentially about what happened thanks for calling me and talk to somebody who can relate,"" Gangi explains. The program aims to help employees, but leaders believe it will ultimately benefit patients too. "In order for us to be at our best, we have to be well," Dr. Watkins says.

Rochester Regional Health breaks records with student loan repayment commitments. Rochester Regional Health is breaking records and changing lives with its new commitment to clinical talent. Offering up to $180,000 in student loan repayment for CRNAs (the highest known offering in the industry), and $25,000 and $30,00 for surg techs and rad techs respectively, the program targets three clinical roles facing critical nationwide shortages. Candidates can apply while still in school, securing employment and loan repayment support before they ever set foot on the floor. Why student loan repayment is the lever health systems have been missing. The math of clinical training is brutal. The average CRNA graduates with more than $150,000 in student debt. Surgical Technologists and Radiologic Technologists carry significant debt loads too - often $25,000 to $50,000 - before earning their first paycheck. That financial pressure shapes everything: where clinicians choose to work, whether they stay or pursue an attractive sign-on bonus down the road, and in too many cases, whether they make it into the workforce at all. When debt pushes a trained clinician out of the field, the loss isn't just to that individual. It's to every patient they would have cared for. Health systems have long tried to address this through sign-on bonuses and competitive salaries. These tools have their place, but they're reactive - extended after a clinician has already entered the workforce, after the financial stress has already shaped their decision-making. They do little to address the upstream problem: the cost of getting there. Student loan repayment changes the calculus entirely. It meets clinicians where the pressure is greatest - during training - and signals something more meaningful than a bonus: a long-term investment in their future. What Rochester Regional Health built - and why it's a record. The Rochester Regional Health program, launched in partnership with Clasp, offers: * Up to $180,000 in student loan repayment support for CRNAs - the highest individual student loan repayment commitment to a single clinical role the industry has seen * Up to $30,000 for Radiologic Technologists * Up to $25,000 for Surgical Technologists Candidates can apply while still enrolled in their training programs, secure a commitment from RRH, and begin receiving structured support upon joining the organization after graduation. That pre-graduation access is what makes this both a pipeline strategy and a retention tactic. Dr. Charlene J. Wilson, EVP and Chief People Officer at Rochester Regional Health, captured the intent clearly: "This program is a strategic investment in the future stability of care for our community." Rochester Regional Health is a nine-hospital integrated health system serving Western New York, the Finger Lakes region, and St. Lawrence County - areas where rural and non-metro healthcare access is already under pressure from workforce shortages. The program is designed not just to fill open roles, but to build a multi-year pipeline that stabilizes clinical capacity across the region for years to come. The workforce shortage behind the announcement. The staffing challenges RRH is addressing are not unique to Western New York. They're a national crisis playing out in every health system in the country. The United States is projected to face significant shortages in anesthesia providers and perioperative roles in the coming years, driven by an aging population, retiring clinicians, and training pipelines that haven't kept pace with demand. Rural and non-metro regions face compounding challenges, where geographic isolation limits both the pool of available candidates and the incentives that can realistically attract them. Surgical Technologists and Radiologic Technologists - roles often overlooked in workforce conversations dominated by nursing and physician shortages - face their own recruitment and retention pressures. These are highly skilled, highly specialized positions. Training takes years. And the financial barriers to entering these fields are significant enough that many qualified candidates never get there. Partnerships like this one with RRH and Clasp go beyond addressing open requisitions, and instead tackle the structural conditions that create them. What this means for the industry. Rochester Regional Health's announcement is significant not only for its scale, but for what it signals about where workforce strategy is heading. The most effective retention tools are investments that align the long-term interests of the employer and the employee rather than just perks. Student loan repayment does that in a way that sign-on bonuses rarely do: building loyalty before the first day of work and removing a source of chronic financial stress that drives burnout and turnover. And when structured as a pre-graduation commitment, it creates a pipeline that health systems can plan around - rather than a recruiting scramble they're always behind on. Clasp was built to make exactly this kind of program possible. Its platform helps health systems reach clinical talent early, secure commitments with them ahead of graduation, and facilitate student loan repayment over a multi-year retention period. Rochester Regional Health is one of a growing number of health systems recognizing that the workforce crisis is a financial ecosystem problem. The organizations that solve it will be the ones that invest upstream - in the people who are still deciding whether they can afford to enter the field at all. The path forward. Rochester Regional Health's partnership with Clasp represents what proactive workforce strategy looks like in practice: a measurable commitment, tied to specific high-need roles, designed to build a pipeline rather than fill a vacancy. For health system leaders thinking about their own workforce challenges, a few questions worth sitting with: * Which clinical roles are you consistently struggling to fill - and what is the financial barrier to entering those fields? * Are your current recruitment incentives reaching candidates early enough to shape their decisions? * What would it mean for your organization to commit to clinicians before they graduate, rather than competing for them after? The answers won't be the same for every organization. But the underlying principle is consistent: the health systems that invest in clinicians at the start of their careers will be better positioned to deliver care to their communities for years to come. Want to learn more about how Clasp can help your organization build a clinical talent pipeline and drive retention after hire?