Sharing Mayo Clinic - July 2009 Archives

Most would not consider the tuba to be especially calming or gentle. But James Jenkins, a concert tubist with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, proves that not only do people enjoy his music, but patients at Mayo Clinic’s Florida campus actually request it. As part of its commitment to holistic healing, Mayo Clinic offers patients and the community, art and music entertainment through Humanities in Medicine. The program partners with local entertainers and artists to bring performances to the campus and musicians like Jenkins to the bedsides of hospitalized patients.

Approximately two to three times each year, Mayo Clinic employees are given the opportunity to participate in "Walk to Wellness," a walking campaign designed to ...

  A CT heart scan produces stunning images of heart arteries and can diagnose serious disease, but it exposes a patient to the radiation equivalent of about 600 chest X-rays. While the risk of developing cancer from the radiation is unknown, it may exist and should make patients who have no symptoms of heart disease think twice before agreeing to such scans. “If a person has symptoms such as chest pain, the benefit of using these tests to come up with a diagnosis and a treatment plan outweighs the small potential risk,” says Thomas Gerber, M.D., a cardiologist at Mayo Clinic’s Florida campus who was the U.S. lead author of an international study examining radiation doses in cardiac CT scanning. “However, the benefit of performing these scans in patients without symptoms is still unclear, and patients should know that.”

Mayo Clinic has a rich history within the nursing profession and continues to strive to "provide the best nursing care in the world." And there ...

Editor's Note: Madeline Stockbridge submitted this story by email after receiving the print edition of the Sharing Mayo Clinic newsletter. She wrote "After reading the ...

When Ali Nowotny was just 15, she began to“blank out.” It was summer of 2006, and she was working as a waitress in her hometown of Rapid City, S.D. The episodes occurred about once a month, and left her “spaced out” for several minutes, slurred her speech and gave her headaches. Ali shrugged them off. But when her boss witnessed an episode, Ali got the encouragement she needed to see a neurologist. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed an abnormality on the left side of her brain. Her doctor prescribed medications to control what was diagnosed as a type of epilepsy called partial complex seizures. Medications reduced episodes from 15 to 20 times a day once a month to two to three seizures one day a month.

Each year, Universum Communications hits the inbox of thousands of students across the United States, surveying them as to their preferred employers and employment attributes. ...

Melissa Shultz, a freelance writer living in Plano, Texas, wrote an article for Newsweek online about her son Nick's mysterious illness and his diagnosis and ...

Part of my job as a clinical dietitian is to teach others how to be healthy. I'm sure other employees feel as I do that sometimes ...

Mayo Clinic's campus in Florida kicked off a new nursing residency program in February. Diane Lassiter, Sara Warren, Rachael Ruffet and Carol DelaCruz are the ...

“I’ll see all of you at noon at the Foundation House,” I stated as I reminded the Year I Mayo Medical School students of their meeting with prospective students. “Is it Mayo wear?” a voice said, and I could hear the hopeful anticipation that I would say "no" in that voice. “Yes, it is Mayo wear” I responded with authority; and so on that day and at the appointed hour, they all showed up and were attired just as I expected -- they were all in their Mayo wear. Mayo wear -- it’s not a new line of clothing designed to promote health, nor is it a codified uniform of garments that Mayo doctors wear. It is our way of showing respect and honoring those who trust us with their lives -- our patients. Like so many good and lasting things, the professional dress of Mayo physicians was something that was gifted to us by our founders -- Drs. William and Charlie Mayo. To separate the physician from the patient by placing the doc in a white coat was not something that the doctors at Mayo found to be favorable. Rather they saw our professional dress as a way of showing our respect and honor at being able to serve patients.