Mayo Clinic Cancer Center

DEFINITION: Mayo Clinic is the first and largest integrated group practice in the world. Based in Rochester, Minnesota, it contains hospital facilities, research laboratories, and a medical school. Together with its satellite hospitals and practices in Jacksonville, Florida and Phoenix and Scottsdale, Arizona, the clinic treats more than one million patients annually and operates by the philosophy that the needs of the patient come first. Mayo Clinic is consistently ranked as one of the best hospitals in the United States. It began as a small outpatient operation but now is a comprehensive healthcare institution for southern Minnesota and its neighboring states, providing a full range of inpatient and outpatient services. Its research department is also world-renowned, publishing more than 9,000 publications in peer-reviewed biomedical journals in 2022. The Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science offers programs in graduate education and clinical medicine.

Statistics: Mayo Clinic is Minnesota’s largest not-for-profit organization. Its revenue has topped $16 billion annually. In 2024, it employed more than 73,300 individuals, including physicians, scientists, and researchers, and allied health staff. The Mayo Clinic College and Medicine and Science educates over 4,000 students each year across four distinct schools.

History: Mayo Clinic began as a small practice founded by William Worrall Mayo and his two sons, William James Mayo and Charles Horace Mayo. W. W. Mayo, originally from the United Kingdom, immigrated to the United States in 1846. He began practicing medicine as the examining surgeon for the Union Army in southern Minnesota. His sons, William and Horace, returned to Rochester to join their father’s practice after graduating from medical school. In 1883, a devastating tornado struck, leaving many casualties and Rochester in ruins. The trio and a nun, Mother Alfred Moes from the Sisters of St. Francis, recognized the need for a large facility to treat the ill and injured and built the twenty-seven-bed Saint Mary Hospital in 1889. This hospital remains in operation in the twenty-first century with 1,265 beds. Two years later, Henry Stanley Plummer joined the practice. Ideologies and systems of group practice that Plummer developed and incorporated then are still widely used. The most notable examples include the centralized, individual, dossier-style medical record and the interconnecting telephone communication system. In 1905, Louis B. Wilson joined the clinic to implement and run the experimental laboratories. He is considered the father of research in Rochester and is known for contributing to the fresh-frozen tissue method for pathological diagnosis. In 1914, Wilson was appointed as the first director of the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research.

W. W. Mayo’s philosophy, “No one is big enough to be independent of others,” greatly influenced his sons. From the outset of their professional careers, the Mayo brothers encouraged collaboration and learning among medical practitioners. In 1906, six visiting surgeons established the Surgeons Club and formalized the open-door policy. The brothers’ practice has not always been called the Mayo Clinic. The brothers originally included their names in the title. The name Mayo Clinic was coined by their medical colleagues who visited the Mayo brothers and preferred to refer to the duo practice as the Mayo Brothers’ Clinic or the Mayos’ Clinic. In 1939, the brothers passed away two months apart. Charlie Mayo passed away from lobar pneumonia, and William Mayo died in his sleep because of complications of his stomach cancer.

Even after the passing of the founders, Mayo Clinic continued to make significant contributions to society. During World War II, the clinic offered its aero-medical research services to the military for one dollar per year, leading to the development of the anti-blackout suit for military pilots. This suit technology is still in use today. In 1950, Mayo Clinic's legacy of excellence was further recognized when Edward Kendall and Philip Hensch became recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work in isolating hormones of the adrenal cortex.

Oncological services: Every year, thousands of patients flock to Mayo Clinic oncology departments, which treat more than two hundred different kinds of cancer. The medical oncology department administers and immunotherapy, and the radiation oncology department administers radiation therapy. These departments work in sync with the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center, which conducts cancer research, clinical trials, clinical treatments, and education. Innovative and advanced cancer care is available at Mayo Clinic. Patients can also access novel drug, immunologic, and gene therapies through ongoing clinical trials. The oncology department services include bone marrow transplantation, electronic portal imaging device (EPID) target localization, familial cancer genetics screening and counseling, stereotactic radiosurgery, high-dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy, hyperthermia, intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), intraoperative radiation therapy, intravascular brachytherapy, low-dose-rate brachytherapy, permanent prostate brachytherapy, radiofrequency of tumors, and small field conformal radiation therapy. Mayo Clinic continues to be at the forefront of oncological treatment. In 2024, a clinical trial at Mayo Clinic employed CAR T-Cell therapy to successfully treat a patient with chronic lymphocytic leukemia who had not responded to any other treatments. 

Institutional features: Mayo Clinic is committed to providing comprehensive patient financial counseling. Patients are first provided with an estimate of costs and informed of any financial support that could be provided by their insurance companies. While fees at Mayo Clinic may be higher than those in standard practice, the clinic’s financial counseling system ensures that costs are well managed. The clinic also operates by group practice principles, which tend to reduce future health costs for patients. 

Bibliography

“About Us.” Mayo Clinic, www.mayoclinic.org/about-mayo-clinic. Accessed 7 July 2024.

Braasch, W. F. Early Days in the Mayo Clinic. Springfield, Ill.: Thomas, 1969.

Kennedy, Patrick. “Ranking Minnesota's Top 100 Nonprofits, with the Largest's Revenue at $13.8B.” Star Tribune, 23 Jan. 2021, www.startribune.com/minnesota-top-nonprofits/600006951. Accessed 7 July 2024.

Murphy, Susan. “Mayo Clinic Patients Find Hope in Individualized Medicine in 2023.” Mayo Clinic News Network, 1 Jan. 2024, newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-patients-find-hope-in-individualized-medicine-in-2023. Accessed 7 July 2024.

“Oncology (Medical) - Overview.” Mayo Clinic, 9 May 2023, www.mayoclinic.org/departments-centers/oncology/sections/overview/ovc-20198225. Accessed 7 July 2024.

Sheperd, J. T. Inside the Mayo Clinic: A Memoir. Afton, Minn.: Afton Historical Society Press, 2003.

Wilder, L. The Mayo Clinic. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1942.