First let me congratulate the team for this blog. If you are reading from outside Mayo Clinic, we’re delighted to welcome you. “Diversity” means many things. At Mayo we want our patients, our medical and research staff, our support team and our patients to reflect the diversity of our country. This enriches all of us and allows us to make our research into basic science and health care as relevant as possible.

As one of the leaders of Mayo’s NIH-funded grants to advance student diversity at Mayo, I’m proud of what is being accomplished and eager to do better.

I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, just a bit more than 3 hours from Rochester, Minnesota by car. I had heard of Mayo as a world-class clinic and hospital. As a high school student with cancer more than 30 years ago, I’d even had my own tumor samples sent to Mayo for analysis. I never thought about Mayo as an academic medical center, or a venue for basic research, or a graduate school for training future Ph.D. leaders in biomedical research.

In 1994, two of my scientific friends from my postdoctoral days at Caltech both visited Mayo in response to ads for faculty positions in basic research. Both are now famous biochemists at leading universities. They both were pleasantly surprised with what they found at Mayo- an excellent basic science research infrastructure, excellent colleagues, generous funding, an attitude of discovery, and a graduate school with excellent Ph.D. students. They had no idea these assets existed at Mayo Clinic. These two suggested I take a look.

I submitted my CV out of curiosity and I was also pleasantly surprised by what Jess accurately called the “hidden world” of Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. It was 13 years ago that I moved my research lab to Mayo. I didn’t expect to become an Associate Dean assisting in leading Mayo Graduate School’s Ph.D. program, and I didn’t expect to end up helping to lead the graduate school’s nationally-recognized diversity programs to increase the diversity of Ph.D. scientists in America. These joyful activities were added to my journey while keeping most of my focus on how cells manage to enhance the flexibility of DNA and trying to engineer RNA aptamers to artificially control gene expression.

At Mayo we do lots of experiments. I am proud to be part of our experiments in diversity. We want to understand principles to enhance the recruitment, retention and success of diverse students. We want to understand how to make them successful biomedical researchers while they are here, and how to support their career success. Sure, we’d like to understand how to recruit some of our underrepresented trainees to become long-term Mayo researchers and physicians. However, I’m most excited about investing in sharing Mayo’s style of research and medicine with future leaders- of all backgrounds and colors- and letting those trainees follow their paths across the country and across the globe. Their Mayo experiences will influence them permanently, will influence their own students, and will eventually pay dividends by making diversity a vibrant hallmark of the Mayo legacy. We think it starts by sharing the secrets of this very special “hidden world.”

This blog is part of that story.

Jim

I recently received a poem that I think is appropriate for this forum and to help readers understand what the Mayo Clinic is. Unfortunately, I don’t know who to attribute authorship. If anyone knows who the author is, please share that information so they can receive appropriate credit for this great work of art!

I am different.
I am hope.
I am compassion.
I am experience.
I am medicine’s true north.
The patient is my star.
My course was set by giants.

I am different.
My journey began by wagon and riverboat.
I was born from a desire to ease suffering.
By a man who mortgaged his house to buy a microscope.
I am a family tradition that continues to this day.
I am the silver lining of a tornado.

I am different.
I have healed presidents and world leaders.
I have healed plumbers and kindergarten teachers.
I discovered what benched Lou Gehrig.
I was the first to open the heart.
I have signed the Nobel book in Stockholm.

I am different
I do not rest on my laurels
I never stop learning
I put the needs of the patient above all else
I embrace teamwork. I don’t care who gets the credit. I care who gets well.
I am over 50,000 strong. And over 50,000 smart.
I am a union of forces.
All striving for the greater good.

I am different.
I have returned farmers to their fields.
And the famous to their footlights.
Thanks to me, grandfathers have fished with grandsons.
Fathers have danced with daughters.
And couples have celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary.

I am different.
I am a calling.
A call to serve.
A call to heal.
A call to see hopes realized.
Loved ones reunited.
And lives well lived.

I am different.
I am Rochester.
I am Scottsdale.
I am Jacksonville.
I am the science of medicine.
I am the art of healing.

I am the Mayo Clinic.