children about the origins of

the mayo clinic, and its role in the community today. we go to rochester minnesota. >> mayo clinic is an american institution. it is at the heart of our country in many respects. it is the world's first and largest private multispecialty group practice. that is a big, formal term. it means it is specialists working together in a highly organized way, devoting a whole range of unique, diverse talents for the sole purpose of serving each individual patient. it is a model that the mayo family developed with the franciscan sisters that has expanded and grown to other medical centers and has welcomed patients from all over the world for more than 150 years. this is heritage hall, the museum of mayo clinic that was established with a gift from john and lillian matthews.

they are loyal patients of mayo clinic and they had a unique vision. they said we want to add more voices to the choir and tell the great stories of mayo through contemporary museum exhibits, designs, films and products like that. today, we are going to explore the history of and more importantly the living legacy of mayo clinic. every patient has a history. the first thing you do when you see a doctor is you give your history as a patient. what your illnesses are, your health status and emily family background. that history informs the care that you received today with the hope of a healthier future. just as you, as a patient, have a history, so does an organization. mayo clinic has a history and our history is a living dynamic part of who we are. it informs who we are today. it sets the stage for where we are going in the future. you will see as you travel around mayo clinic in heritage

hall and in our other historic displays that history is present with us. people talk about it in an immediate sense. i will show you and my colleagues will show you some fun and interesting things that bring that to life. a lot of people wonder how a very large, prominent medical center ever got started in a small, remote town like rochester, minnesota. it is an amazing combination of factors. mayo is a family name. dr. william mayo was born near manchester, england in 1819. he grew up in the industrial revolution. he developed a strong, social conscience of giving back to others. young mayo, he sought a better future for himself and came to america in the 1840's. he worked his way west. in indiana, he married louise abigail wright and she was his business partner. you had wonderful teamwork coming together to serve patients. malaria was common in indiana at that time. dr. mayo sought a healthier climate. he came here as a patient

seeking a healthier future. he came to minnesota in the territory days. he worked a number of cities around the state forms farms and different things. in 1864, he opened a practice and moved his family to rochester when the lincoln administration saw him as an examining doctor during the civil war. his role was to see which young men were fit for military duty. we were one of the newest states in the nation. his job was to see who was fit for service. the family stayed here because mrs. mayo said we are not moving anymore.

abraham lincoln brought us here and missus mayo kept us here. dr. mayo had sons who grew up in medicine like farm boys on a farm. they would serve his patients with dad. they absorbed his ideals and his values and it was natural that they were going into medicine as their time came. the mayo family had been here since the 1860's. it was the summer of 1883 and dr. mayo was the senior position in town. his eldest son had just graduated medical school that spring. charlie was still a high high school preparatory student at home. august, a cyclone comes. hale heard a terrible, devastating storm hit the city. dr. mayo and his sons were in charge of helping the survivors. they needed nurses. most women had families to look at. when seeking help, dr. mayo went down the street to the academy of our lady of lorde, founded by the franciscan sisters. the mother superior center sisters to be his nurses. they worked in a dance hall in

and in makeshift facilities. not long after the disaster, mother alfred came to dr. mayo with a true vision. she said we, the franciscans, will build a hospital for the city if you and your sons will staff it. dr. mayo resisted. hospitals are expensive, risky, he was elderly. it is a small town, we cannot do this. mother alfred persisted that with faith, hope and energy, it will succeed. so, they shook hands. dr. mayo and mother alfred. no legal contract, a bond of trust. from that st. mary's hospital opened in 1889. men and women did not work together as affectional counterparts at that time. dr. mayo was a man, a man of science. he admired charles darwin. mother alfred, a woman of faith. they found common ground in serving patients. if you get this, you get all the rest. you have different people, different skills and different points of view but they come together for the common

purpose. each one brought something unique to the equation. dr. mayo and louise raised their family right here in rochester, in this house, which stood literally across the street from where we are right now. they made a momentous decision when the brothers were quite young. they decided they would mortgage this house and with that mortgage funding, purchase a microscope to help care for dr. mayo's patients. the mayo boys were young. they were maybe eight, nine or four or five years old. the two of them. they were a member of heir parents'sacrifice. they grew up knowing medicine was a true calling. and to work together in a cooperative manner. fast-forward to win the mayo's,

and we see william and charles as adults, they were arguably the most successful doctors in america by the early 1920's. remembering their parents sacrifice and the example of the franciscan sisters, the brothers and their wives in 1919 donated the land, building and equipment and the majority of their life savings to transform mayo from a private partnership into a not-for-profit organization. mayo clinic is here today because of their sacrifice and their generosity. we have talked about the origins of mayo clinic at heritage hall. it is really worthwhile to visit the palmer building with my colleagues to get a feeling for how the clinic grew and flourished. >> right now, we are standing in this historical suite which is located in the plummer

building. it is the suite where the last offices of dr. will and charlie mayo are located along with the board of governors room. this space is used as a museum today. our patients and visitors are able to learn more about our history. how the males practiced medicine was much different than it is today. william was the physician who would go out into the country and get on his buggy and horse and take it out to the farm and visit the patients. surgeries were performed on kitchen tables, not in hospitals or operating room settings. instruments and medicine were very crude and.

not what you are looking at today, now there are some medicines that were carried in a positions bag. there are not many to select from. there was not a lot known about what would cure different ailments. this is what was had and prescribed to patients. they administered one dose and hoped it would work. the mayo's practiced this but they realized they needed larger space. they opted to rent some space in downtown rochester. here are some of the different locations they rented. the sonic temple was a newly built building. they rented space on the second floor for our patients to be seen there. they worked in the sonic temple until 1914. this building represents the very first mayo clinic that was built by the mayo family. it housed an integrated group in practice in medicine. they needed to have others join the practice. william often quoted no one is big enough to be independent of others. they realized early on that they needed to hire other individuals with other talents and interests to provide the best care for our patients. dr.

will and charlie were surgeons but they knew they needed people working in the laboratories. the x-ray department and all other aspects of medicine to provide the best care for our patients. so here you will see the first mayo clinic being built. it started in 1912 with the construction. and in 1914, it opened. it was five floors. it housed all the different specialties. we were anticipating about 14,000 patients to arrive on an annual basis. 26,000 were coming to rochester for care. we quickly outgrew this space and ended up building the next building that we will be talking about which is the plummer building, currently but it was the second mayo clinic. this is 15 floors. it encompassed all of the departments that the patients would need to be seen in. and it was an integrated group practice. here is a model of an examining

room that would have been in the 1914 mayo clinic building. it is very similar to our exam rooms today. you will see a couch where the patient or family member sits. an exam table, a physician's desk, a scale and a sink. cork floors were in the 1914 mayo clinic buildings. it provided less stress so you could stand for longer periods of time. also in the clinical practice, they realized that the exam rooms and instruments used need to be cleaned. the cover over the bedding needed to be changed frequently. the idea of antiseptic techniques were developed in england and they had seen it practiced over there in their travels. they brought those practices

back to mayo clinic. >> i am standing in dr. will's last offices. this would be used during his administered of years, so 1928 is when he would have moved into this area. you will see his desk. he loved the truth and sought to know it. dr. will is described as the businessman, administrator type. he sometimes was known to be more stern but had a great sense of humor. and he married his high school sweetheart. her photo is on the bookcase. and her name was haddie damon, she was the daughter of a local jeweler. they had five children but only two lived past infancy. two daughters, carrie and pb.

both of the daughters married prominent male surgeons. the daughters did not go into medicine. in 1928, when dr. will moved into this office, he was no longer practicing as a surgeon however he was very involved in the mayo clinic. administratively. he sat on the board of governors until 1935 when he stepped down and let the younger individuals take over running the clinic. and he still was intimately involved, knowing that patients were being taken care of. this is my favorite room we are standing in at the moment. it is the board of governors room. it was started because dr. will and dr. charlie in 1915 started the proceedings to set up the mayo clinic as a nonprofit organization. that involved setting up the board and we are still run by a board today. this is the board room. the honors and awards on the

wall are for dr. will and dr. charlie from all over the world. they traveled all over the world and brought back the best practices to the mayo clinic. what they would do is go and travel for several months each spring and fall. one always stayed back at mayo to tend to business. they would present and visit at other hospitals and became known to other physicians. dr. will felt that jealousy amongst the medical profession would be a detriment and sharing knowledge was critical for the profession. you can tell by their honors and awards that they were well respected by their peers. dr. will was asked to give an address at a medical college for the graduating class in 1910. and that is when he articulated that the needs of the patient come first. which is our primary value here at mayo clinic. all we do is for our patients. and the mayos realized you needed education and research

to be able to provide that great care for our patients. we still practiced with that in our forthoughts. education, we have five schools at mayo clinic. we have many research labs so that we can advance medicine and science. the history of mayo clinic is interwoven with the history of rochester. the city has grown and expanded right along with mayo clinic to provide different services and amenities for our patients just like mayo clinic has. >> we are in a place of heritage hall called the treasure gallery. we have a number of cubbies that present different facets of their contribution to medicine and society. over here is an iconic artifact.

it is a baseball signed by lou gehrig, the great new york yankees ballplayer when he was a patient here in 1939. the black-and-white photo shows this to garrick as a patient. lou garrick as a patient. he gave back. he gave batting lessons and pitching clinics and worked out with the american legion team. bob asked lou gehrig to sign his lucky ball and he did sign the ball on his birthday in june of 1939, the day he was diagnosed with als. he signed the ball for bob and bob kept the ball for 75 years. the color photo shows bob as an elderly man still treasuring the baseball. bob sold the baseball to andy. andy bought the ball for the sole purpose that he and his

daughter, taylor, who we see in the photo, would give it to mayo clinic to inspire our patients. you have generosity across many generations coming together with this one baseball signed by a great american athlete. this is a replica of the nobel prize that mayo clinic received in 1950. two mayo staff members, dr. edward kendall, a laboratory scientist and dr. philip hinch worked together on the invention and clinical use of cortisone. a drug many of us know now. they received a nobel prize, a classic example of a bridge from discovering something in a lab to applying it for the care of patients. the word came to mayo clinic by a text message, not the way you would get a text message on your phone but by a western union telegram announcing that. they were so team based in their philosophy that they used part of their prize money for the nobel award and gave it to their laboratory and clinical assistance.

one of their assistants was a franciscan sister. she could not accept the financial recognition so they found a way to deal with that. they said that is fine, we will send you on a trip to europe and you can meet the pope. they always found ways to contribute and get back to others. other artifacts, and the arly telephone. we have always loved technology at mayo clinic. dr. william warren mayo had the first telephone in this region. it connected his farmhouse with his office. the idea of patient convenience, you could walk into the local area and call dr. mayo at his home. this was transformative, disruptive technology at that time. the local newspaper had to print an article, how to place a telephone call. it was so new to people that they did not know what to do. they assured that your voice and dr. mayo's voice would be as clear

a mile apart as if you are in the same room. you would talk into this and listen for that and various things. it was a new way of communicating for your medical care. 1919, when the mayo family the brothers and their wives made the decision to donate the assets and life savings to our non-profit mission, here is the document they signed and the ink they used. this deed of gift is a legal document but it is kind of a statement of their philosophy. if you go through the terminology of the therefore's and all of that, there is a couple of powerful sentences that stand out. one of them, they wrote the ultimate purpose of the clinic, past, present, and future must be measured by its contributions to the good of humanity. they did not say cure this disease or open this lab or run

this program. they said serve humanity. other examples, on the eve of world war ii, mayo began working in aviation. planes could fly higher but crews were crashing because they were blacking out at the high levels, not having sufficient oxygen. crews were getting killed. mayo understood blood circulation. they began working in top-secret ways during the war years. we developed pressurized chambers to keep the blood pressure up, allowing the pilot and crew to remain conscious while they flew at higher altitudes. we developed a high altitude oxygen mask and several other innovations of arrow medicine. this invention is still used in aviation today. it helped launch the jet age and the space travel, which has roots in the mayo's aviation research.

we charged the government one dollar a year for the wartime services. the knowledge of blood circulation opened up the era of open-heart surgery. you see a large photograph of the early heart-lung bypass machine. there was a doctor who developed a heart-lung bypass surgery. they would give oxygen to keep the patient alive. one patient survived and four passed away. he abandoned it and could not go on. mayo thought there was some merit in dr. gibbons'technology. they reengineered his machine to create what is now called the heart-lung bypass machine.

if you know anybody who has had open heart surgery or a heart transplant, it began with a machine just like this. our first patient at mayo clinic, linda stout, she was a five-year-old girl from bismark, north dakota. she was dying of a heart defect. she had a short time to live. her parents brought her here with no other hope. her life was saved in a machine just like this. that is her sixth birthday party a few months after her operation. she lived a wonderful life. i have interviewed her a number of times. linda came back to mayo clinic on the 50th anniversary of her heart surgery as a guest of honor at a surgical congress. look what she gave us. she gave us her autograp book

and her get well cards that her mother had saved for her. we tell our new employees when they come here on their tour, behind every invention at the mayo clinic, there is always a linda. typical autographs, she has her world famous surgeon's autographed. she has the cleaning lady's autographed. . you see her childhood scrawl of her name. she had these good people all around her. she tells the story. i remember she described it vividly. she was young, five years old. the night before surgery, what she remembers are these tall, young men in white jackets. they got on their knees and talked to her eye to eye. they said tomorrow, you will fall asleep but when you wake up, you will feel a lot better. she said i had no idea how nervous they must have been because i was their first patient. >> medicine is undergoing vast

changes. even in my career, i have seen tremendous advances in medicine and the pace is only accelerating. as we see the dynamic potential for what medicine can do, we come back to the unchanging things.