Visiting The Mayo Clinic

The Mayo Clinic rises from the Minnesota Prarie like a flower in a vacant parking lot. 

Rochester residents wouldn’t appreciate that description, but what’s more unlikely than the world’s top medical center sprouting from a windswept prairie?

One doesn’t go to the Mayo Clinic to treat a sniffle. Pilgrims sojourn to this medical Meca in search of answers to serious issues beyond the ken of local practitioners. Mayo is a beacon of hope. This much I knew when I requested a second opinion on our Son Daniel’s recurring strokes. After two months in triage, our request was approved.

Our hotel in Rochester was connected to the main lobby of Mayo’s downtown campus via a tunnel. Thankfully, we brought a map; the clinic is a city in itself. Walking through a massive subterranean lobby, I was stunned; so many people, so many problems. Last year, Mayo treated 1.3 million patients from 130 different countries, including every State in the Union. Each person had a story, a burden, and a dream hidden from view.  

On the first night of our visit, we met a man at the table next to ours who was a Smithsonian award-winning photographer. He nearly lost his vision. The next day, we rode the elevator with a woman who didn’t speak English. Our daughter once needed medical attention from a hospital where no one spoke English. Communicating via Google Translate adds a layer of stress. 

Mayo’s facilities and medical technologies were impressive. Equally impressive was the kindness of the staff who treated us like people rather than a condition. 

At the end of one appointment, we were confused about how to navigate back through the maze of buildings to the front entrance. Instead of offering directions, our Doctor walked us back. 

On our last day, while waiting for a scheduled test, we were approached by a volunteer from “Caring Hands.” She asked if we knew this organization. I said, “No,” then braced myself for an encounter with a Jehovah’s Witness. It turned out that Caring Hands is exactly what the name implies. Jackie gave Dan a hand and forearm massage that lasted thirty minutes.  It was a bit awkward at first, but there was such kindness in her demeanor that our apprehension quickly vanished. 

We didn’t get all the answers we hoped for at Mayo, but we did gain deeper insight into Dan’s situation. 

After returning from Mayo, I listened to an Ezra Klien Show podcast on artificial intelligence. The discussion centered on the likelihood of AI replacing key aspects of human agency. It’s a thought-provoking question. AI’s advancement pace is astounding; in fact, I found OpenAI’s Chat GPT 4 and Anthropic’s Claude 3 Opus extremely helpful in preparing questions for the Mayo Neurologist. 

Ezra’s guest on the show was Nilay Patel, the Editor and Chief of The Verge (a tech Publication).  Nilay was unconcerned about humans being replaced, commenting:

 “The essence of being a good person is pointing your effort at making other people not feel pain.”

AI may be useful, but it’s a long way from exuding goodness by that definition.  Maybe that’s a reasonable test for organizations as well. 

If so, The Mayo Clinic passes with flying colors!

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