Sharing Mayo Clinic

On Mother's Day, Jeanine Peterson told the story on her blog of the special gift she gave her mom, a Mayo Clinic patient. With her mom's permission, we share a portion of the story here:

As an 8-year-old girl from Michigan was headed into surgery for a heart transplant, she asked Mike Ackerman -- a pediatric cardiology fellow at Mayo who was part of her care team -- if she was going to live. Dr. Ackerman said, "Of course you're going to live, and I'm going to dance with you at your prom."  Ten years later -- on April 25, 2009 -- Dr. Ackerman flew to Michigan to surprise Stefani Pentiuk at her senior prom to fulfill a promise made years ago. I work at Mayo Clinic in our Public Affairs Department. Specifically, I work on our media team, helping reporters connect with physicians for interviews. I have had the pleasure of helping share Stefani's story.Update June 5, 2005: Dr. Ackerman, Stefani and her parents were featured live in the studio with Harry Smith on the CBS Early Show this morning. See the segment.

December 7, 1941 was labeled by Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a "Day of Infamy" after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  For my wife, Anne, and me the date was April 13, 2009 when we heard from our family doctor that Anne had metastatic colon cancer.  The most unbelievable thing to us was that she had had no symptoms at all--no bowel changes, no bleeding, pain or weight loss.  What she did have was a "bump" in her upper abdomen which felt like a lipoma (small fatty tumor).  She noted it when we were away for a weekend with some friends. On the Monday we returned, she called our family doctor, who thought she may have a gallbladder problem.  He ordered an abdominal ultrasound which was done 3 days later.  This showed that she had several masses in her liver.  Since she was so asymptomatic, and they were so big, it was hard to imagine they were "bad" but an abdominal CT scan performed the next day (and reported to him on April 13th) showed our worst fears: colon cancer that involved lymph nodes and had metastasized to the liver. Our family doc, who is a friend and also goes to our church, immediately scheduled a colonoscopy, and a metastatic workup which included a CT scan of her lungs, brain, and a bone scan. He also called an oncologist here in Saginaw, another friend (I'm an orthopaedic surgeon, so I know most of the doctors in town), who insisted we go to the Mayo Clinic without doing anything here other than the scans.  Of course I knew about the Mayo Clinic, but other than referring the occasional patient here over the years, had never been to it.

National Nurses Week is May 6 through May 12. 2009.  The purpose of National Nurses Week is to raise awareness about the nursing profession and to ...

This submission came via email from P.J. Stietz, a Mayo Clinic employee: My husband and I just recently marked the sixth anniversary of the accident that paralyzed him. It was Mayo that came to his rescue, patched him up and got him ready to face the world again. We owe a great debt to the clinic. Not only did they provide superior care, but he was uninsured at the time and Mayo covered the majority of his hospital bill. Now that you have the Sharing Mayo Clinic blog, I thought it would be a wonderful way to share what Mayo has meant to us and to say "thanks." I hope you'll consider posting it. We're happy to be able to share P.J.'s submission, with Dan's consent:

Greetings from Lab Medicine. My name is Jolene Summer Bolster and I am one of two placement coordinators for the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology (DLMP). I, along with Karen Fields, lead the DLMP's Laboratory Recruitment Program. This program involves visiting laboratory programs nationwide and presenting employment opportunities available at Mayo Clinic. We primarily target clinical lab science and medical technology majors, however, we are also interested in human-based biology and chemistry majors as well. In addition to recruiting, we screen applicants for laboratory technologist and laboratory assistant positions, identify candidates to be scheduled, place employees into appropriate laboratories, direct the Summer Lab Science Program, as well as a variety of other tasks and duties related to personnel in DLMP.

At first glance, you might think a Coding Specialist was an expert at announcing the codes heard frequently in the clinic and hospital corridors. "Code ...

When Jayson Werth was struck on the wrist by a pitch during the first spring training game of 2005 as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers, he began an odyssey to overcome the injury and return to his promising career in major league baseball. Now Jayson is a member of the World Champion Philadelphia Phillies, and I had the opportunity to interview him yesterday before their home game against the Washington Nationals. Jayson recalled the pain, frustration and anxiety that brought him to Mayo Clinic in August 2006 to see Richard Berger, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon and wrist specialist. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7DVzKk7RAI

Doorman and Ambassador Patients often comment on the quality of Mayo Clinic employees. You typically hear statements about how the people who work here are friendly and helpful.  Well, that's a long tradition at Mayo. Let me introduce you to a colleague from our past, an employee who lived out the qualities that we strive for today. His name was Joe Fritsch, but he was such a great ambassador of our organization that everyone called him "Joe Clinic."  He was the Mayo Clinic doorman, and beloved by patients and colleagues alike.

When I think about my family’s history with the Mayo Clinic, I immediately think of the kitchen ceiling in my childhood home, where a pale orange circle about the size of a basketball is forever stained into the plaster. Most people probably wouldn’t even notice it’s there, but we do. It has a story, of course. Not an entirely cheery one, but we have a family philosophy that if it makes for a good story… you really can’t complain. My mother, Sharon, had her first tumor in her jaw just after my birth in 1973, and it cost her four teeth and a large chunk of jawbone. 1977 brought the birth of my younger sister, Britney, and another tumor. This one took a deeper, “U” shaped piece of the bone. A year later, a third tumor took the entire lower left quadrant of her jawbone, which was replaced with a metal rod. Winter always meant thick scarves wrapped around her head because the rod would get cold and radiate a monster ice-cream headache.

One of our committed allied health staff members in Arizona recently submitted a quote to the site Diversity Subcommittee for our Best Quote contest that ...

Nearly 100,000 men, women and children in the U.S. are on the national organ transplant waiting list awaiting a life saving transplant. About 100 new names are added to the list daily. On an average day, 77 people receive organ transplants in the U.S. But thousands more never get the call from their transplant center saying a suitable donor organ - and a second chance at life - has been found. "Organ donation is a generous and worthwhile decision that can be a lifesaving gift to multiple people," explained Thomas Gonwa, M.D., chair of the department of transplantation at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. "Thanks to the availability of these organs, along with regular blood donations that replenish the blood supply so critical to the transplant process, many people will live that might not otherwise have hope."