Sharing Mayo Clinic - October 2009 Archives

Regular readers of Sharing Mayo Clinic -- or Facebook "fans" or Twitter followers or YouTube subscribers -- won't be surprised at what KAAL-TV reported ...

Brenda Bonds, a Mayo Clinic patient from Wisconsin, shared this story recently via email. To share your story, click here for options. Pain is a fascinating ...

The Mayo Clinic Healthcare Career Festival was held October 6 in Rochester, Minn., and was a huge success with nearly 800 high school students from ...

Mayo Clinic recently received an award for being one of the "Best Workplaces for Commuters" during 2009–2010. The "Best Workplaces for Commuters" award is part ...

Last week, 69 women from across the country gathered in Rochester, Minn.,  for the 8th annual Science & Leadership Symposium, a joint effort between Mayo ...

Participants at the 8th annual Science & Leadership Symposium -- a joint effort by Mayo Clinic's Women's Heart Clinic and WomenHeart: The National Coalition for Women ...

"The numberous resources offered by Mayo Clinic for employees looking to adopt, reminded me why I feel so lucky to work at this institution." -- Dana Baker

When there is critical information that we don’t know, we run the risk of listening to hearsay, considering myths to be facts, not knowing the ...

Joan Dymand-Hintz was in her early 40's when she became pregnant with her daughter. The happiness she and her husband Marc Hintz felt was short-lived. ...

Take a step back in time to the bustling days of 1928 when the Plummer Building first opened ...

Just days after being told he had a tumor inside his heart, Ron Reffitt Jr., of Elk Rapids, Mich., was on a medical airplane headed to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Gazing down at Lake Michigan on that beautiful sunny day in January 2009, he wondered: Is this the last time I’ll see this? His symptoms began on New Year’s Day in 2009 — the day after his 42nd birthday. Reffitt woke with a cramp in his neck. The pain worsened as he walked to the kitchen, where he passed out. He roused and passed out again. At the local hospital, tests revealed fluid around his heart. Then came the real blow: he had a tumor in the right atrium of his heart. Reffitt, who works in his family’s construction business in Traverse City, Mich., was told he didn’t have long to live.

Editor's Note: Jillayn Hey, a Mayo Clinic patient from LaCrosse, WI, sent this story via email. I recently read an article titled; "Want to Heal? Tell Your Story. Narrative medicine boosts our bodies and souls", Utne Reader (Sept.-Oct. 2009). The basis of the article is that through telling our personal stories of illness and disease, we assist in creating a new story of wellness that facilitates healing and in turn directs a person towards recovery. This is just one aspect that "Sharing Mayo Clinic" provides. It is not only an opportunity for many patients and perhaps future patients to tell their unique stories to work their way towards health but it also provides a voice for its employees to share parts of their daily work which I know must include joy and sorrow as some of us become well and some of us unfortunately do not. In my opinion, this is just another area that Mayo is ahead of the curve in caring for its patients and obviously their employees as well. That said, here is my story: