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On Saturday I toured Mayo with SWE. It was a really cool tour, and I even learned the names of some of the Mayo buildings, something I had never been able to do even after living several years in Rochester and interacting with a few Mayo people. We started the day by gathering at Victoria’s for lunch. After lunch we walked through the underground tunnels to the clinic.
We began the tour with a few presentations. The first presentation was about the history of the clinic. The town of Rochester existed because it was a low point in the Zumbro river, where it could be forded. A tornado devastated the town of Rochester in the early 1900′s and the Mayo family (a father and two sons — all doctors) started a hospital with the help of the sisters of Assisi Heights. They adopted the technique of aseptic surgery. This meant that they were sterilizing things, so they were known for success in their practice of medicine very early. They hired more doctors, including Henry Plummer, a doctor with an engineering background. They eventually converted their practice into a not for profit organization, and it also became a medical school as well, but I’m not sure when that occurred. The Mayo Clinic was the site of the first heart lung machine and it was used to correct congenital heart defects in babies (called blue babies). They have one of the early heart lung machines on site, but that room wasn’t open on Saturday. |
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The second presentation was about deep brain stimulation, research on going at Mayo. Deep brain stimulation involves inserting a sensor into the brain and monitoring chemical levels. The results that they showed us were amazing. We saw a video of one man with Parkinson’s who could barely walk. We saw a video after his deep brain stimulation procedure and he could dance. They also use deep brain stimulation to treat many other neurological problems like clinical depression. I was impressed with the results they were achieving and by the end of the presentation I wanted my own brain sensor. |
We then toured the Plummer Building which has beautiful architecture. If you’re in downtown Rochester, it is the building with the bell tower. We went through the reading room for the medical school library. This is an awesome room with beautiful leaded glass windows and tables for reading. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. Except for the picture of the windows, that is. I am not good at taking pictures of windows, but take my word for it…they are cool.
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Tags: brain, downtown, engineering, mayo, photos, Rochester, tour, Zumbro