Mayo Brothers’ Wisdom
More than a century ago, Dr. William J. Mayo and Dr. Charles H. Mayo, along with their father, Dr. William W. Mayo, created what has become Mayo Clinic. The tradition and heritage they began includes many innovations that have changed medicine worldwide, including the first multi-specialty group practice and the centralized medical record.
The Mayo brothers were pioneers whose far-sighted wisdom made Mayo Clinic possible. In 1919, they donated their estates to what became the Mayo Foundation and put all employees – including physicians – on a salaried basis.
Decisions like that were outgrowths of a philosophy that has defined Mayo Clinic, and that was expressed by Dr. Will Mayo in 1910, in a graduation speech to Rush Medical College in Chicago.
2010 marked the 100th anniversary of that speech, which is excerpted below in the first of a year-long series of posts with quotes from the Mayo brothers. To honor them, and in memory of their father, who passed away 100 years ago in March, we will be posting a quote from either Dr. Will or Dr. Charlie here (and on Twitter) each working day of 2011.
For more background on this series, see
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June 3
“Science is organized knowledge of the physical world.” – Dr. Will Mayo
June 2
“Carry out the two fundamental surgical requirements: see what you are doing and leave a dry field.”- Dr. Charlie Mayo
June 1
“There is a limit to the amount of learning a man can absorb.”- Dr. Will Mayo
May 31
“Men left the colleges with their intellectual packs on their backs to live by their own hands.” – Dr. Charlie Mayo
May 27
“One of the signs of a truly educated people, and a broadly educated nation, is lack of prejudice.”- Dr. Charlie Mayo
May 26
“It has been said that the anatomist never made a good surgeon, that it was the pathologist who made the surgeon.” – Dr. Will Mayo
May 25
“The scientist is not content to stop at the obvious.”- Dr. Charlie Mayo
May 24
“Given one well-trained physician of the highest type he will do better work for a thousand people than ten specialists.” – Dr. Will Mayo
May 23
“In the study of digestion as a necessary function in the maintenance of life, one comes very close to the fundamental question of life itself.”- Dr. Charlie Mayo
May 20
“To children is given the power of readily acquiring languages; later, mathematics is acquired with the same readiness; but reasoning from cause to effect is a development of adolescence and early manhood.”- Dr. Will Mayo
May 19
“The medical profession should feel proud of the position it has attained in the affairs of the world.”- Dr. Charlie Mayo
May 18
“When people have entered the seventies of their age, they usually find themselves growing conservative.”- Dr. Will Mayo
May 17
“The philosophic view of bacteria is to consider them necessary to life as the minute chemists of the air, the water and the soil.”- Dr. Charlie Mayo
May 16
“It is for the younger people to meet the conditions of their generations in the way that appears to them to be wise and best.”- Dr. Will Mayo
May 13
“More good would come to our country through tongue control than birth control.” – Dr. Charlie Mayo
May 12
“The wit of science not only expresses but actually reveals the science and art of medicine.”-Dr. Will Mayo
May 11
“We make many laws but obey few; and having an abhorrence of discipline, we discuss freedom.” – Dr. Charlie Mayo
May 10
“Sometimes I wonder whether today we take sufficient care to make a thorough physical examination before our patient starts off on the round of the laboratories, which have become so necessary that oftentimes we do not fully appreciate the value of our five senses in estimating the condition of the patient.”- Dr. Will Mayo
May 9
“Public demand is the only true stimulus for tradesmen and professional men alike.” –Dr. Charlie Mayo
May 6
“He never tried to utter the final word.” -Dr. Will Mayo
May 5
“The by-products of human deficiencies, mental, moral and physical, are a clog and a burden to the state.” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
May 4
“Have we thought enough of wisdom, which moves knowledge and makes it useful?” -Dr. Will Mayo
May 3
“While medicine is a science, in many particulars it cannot be exact, so baffling are the varying results of varying conditions of human life.”- Dr. Charlie Mayo
May 2
“I think all of us who have worked years in the profession understand that many very skillful operators are not good surgeons.”- Dr. Will Mayo
April 29
“It is a poor government that does not realize that the prolonged life, health and happiness of its people are its greatest asset.”- Dr. Charlie Mayo
April 28
“Property rights have heretofore been considered sacred; human rights, of less consequence.” – Dr. Will Mayo
April 27
“Experience with success or failure only enables the individual operator to justify methods.”- Dr. Charlie Mayo
April 26
“We have never been allowed to lose sight of the fact that the main purpose to be served by the Clinic is the care of the sick.” -Dr. Will Mayo
April 25
“The laws of civilization signify progress and efficiency along scientific lines.” – Charlie Mayo
April 22
“It is worth-while to secure the happiness of the patient as well as to prolong his life.” - Dr. Will Mayo
April 21
“In medical progress the means of relief by therapeutic measures or surgery have far outstripped our knowledge of the cause of disease.” – Dr. Charlie Mayo
April 20
“It is a man’s duty to provide moderately for his family, but anything beyond this may be a detriment to his descendants.”- Dr. Will Mayo
April 19
“In the conquering of serious diseases by surgical measures it is important that the operation itself should be as free from mortality as possible.” – Dr. Charlie Mayo
April 18
“Individually the American is most efficient man on earth; collectively and politically, extraordinarily inefficient.” – Dr. Will Mayo
April 15
“Good health is an essential to happiness, and happiness is an essential to good citizenship.” – Dr. Charlie Mayo
April 14
“It is a great thing to make scientific discoveries of rare value, but it is even greater to be willing to share these discoveries and to encourage other workers in the same field of scientific research.” – Dr. Will Mayo
April 13
“Life does not occur without life.” – Dr. Charlie Mayo
April 12
“…it is better to think and sometimes think wrong than not to think at all.” – Dr. Will Mayo
April 11
“As a profession we are probably less acute in our general observation than was the practitioner of the old school.” – Dr. Charlie Mayo
April 8
“Today, it is impossible for any one man to know more than a little of comparatively few things.” - Dr. Will Mayo
April 7
“The fact that these fads exist may be fortunate since it leads the advocates to redouble their efforts in a desire to prove the efficiency of the method.” – Dr. Charlie Mayo
April 6
“Reading papers is not for the purpose of showing how much we know and what we are doing, but is an opportunity to learn.” - Dr. Will Mayo
April 5
“The significance of an ailment should not be measured by the inconvenience it causes at the time, but by what may come of it four or five years afterward.” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
April 4
“Experience is the great teacher; unfortunately, experience leaves mental scars, and scar tissue contracts.”- Dr. Will Mayo
April 1
“It will soon be generally recognized that the citizen is best made when a child” – Dr. Charlie Mayo
March 31
“As we become more civilized we are beginning to emphasize not the differences that lead to antagonism but the common impulses and desires which lead to better understanding.” – Dr. Will Mayo
March 30
“There are two objects of medical education: To heal the sick, and to advance the science.” – Dr. Charlie Mayo
March 29
“In the autumn of life one perhaps may be privileged to become reminiscent.” - Dr. Will Mayo
March 28
“When you want support for public health measures you have to educate the people. When you start to educate the people you should begin with the women because they will fight for the health of their children.” - Dr. Charlie Mayo
March 25
“Age carries mental scars left by experience which shorten vision, but age carries wisdom.”- Dr. Will Mayo
March 24
“The great contribution we can make is to prepare the oncoming generations to think that they can and will think for themselves.” - Dr. Charlie Mayo
March 23
“That which can be foreseen can be prevented.” - Dr. Will Mayo
March 22
“Medicine is about as big or as little in any community, large or small, as the physicians make it.” - Dr. Charlie Mayo
March 21
“Every teacher was a practitioner of medicine and every student was taught to practice medicine.”- Dr. Will Mayo
March 18
“It has been the constant effort of the medical profession to cure or control disease by a study of its causes.”-Dr. Charlie Mayo
March 17
“In the autumn of life one perhaps may be privileged to become reminiscent.” -Dr. Will Mayo
March 16
“The sooner patients can be removed from the depressing influence of general hospital life the more rapid their convalescence.”-Dr. Charlie Mayo
March 15
“People die from very real things.” - Dr. Will Mayo
March 14
“Science and education have done much but education still lags.” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
March 11
“The physician has been the council for the prosecution and the defense, the jury and the judge.”-Dr. Will Mayo
March 10
“Probably in the not far distant future we will crawl out of our old methods of education, as a snake sheds its skin, and reorganize a new plan.” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
March 9
“After all, the best the college can do is to give the students breadth of knowledge, not necessarily depth of knowledge.” -Dr. Will Mayo
March 8
“The people will gradually demand more of their medical advisers.” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
March 7
“Competitive medicine was the response of the individual physician to his training and environment.” -Dr. Will Mayo
March 4
“The small expense of restoring an individual to health and usefulness is returned manifold.”-Dr. Charlie Mayo
March 3
“The keen clinician, as he grows in experience, becomes more and more valuable as age advances.” -Dr. Will Mayo
March 2
“If we excel in anything, it is in our capacity for translating idealism into action.” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
March 1
“Youth has visions of the future which are not shared to an equal extent by those of middle and later age; youth is a builder of images, a dreamer of dreams.” -Dr. Will Mayo
February 28
“There must be adjustment of education to the individual.” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
February 25
“The outstanding feature of American public life today is reverence for education.” -Dr. Will Mayo
February 24
“Every part of the body is dependent on the whole and to develop a specialty more fully is to study what constitutes health and disease.” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
February 23
“Medicine is the best of all professions, the most hopeful.” -Dr. Will Mayo
February 22
“Education of the masses, has reached a high percentage; intellectual giants are in the minority.” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
February 21
“The foundation of modern gastric surgery was the exploratory incision.” -Dr. Will Mayo
February 18
“Obedience to law means life and liberty.” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
February 17
“The ills of today must not cloud the horizon of tomorrow.” -Dr. Will Mayo
February 16
“Democracy is not achieved in a day.” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
February 15
“Rehabilitation is to be a master word in medicine.” -Dr. Will Mayo
February 14
“We, as parents, must give up our professed right to fix our children’s thinking.” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
February 11
“Knowledge is static; wisdom is active and moves knowledge, making it effective.” -Dr. Will Mayo
February 10
“The prevention of disease today is one of the most important factors in the line of human endeavor.” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
February 9
“Instruction from teachers and books teaches a man what to think, but the great need is that he should learn how to think.” -Dr. Will Mayo
February 8
“More personal hygiene and improved heredity are the keynote to the health of the coming generation.”-Dr. Charlie Mayo
February 7
“Health has come to be generally recognized as an economic principle.” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
February 4
“The old should remember that they represent the past, and the young represent the future.” -Dr. Will Mayo
February 3
“The writer of textbooks should have a ready imagination and he should understand the child’s mind.” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
February 2
“Since the object of travel is primarily self-improvement, time should not be wasted looking for things done badly and for things to criticize.” -Dr. Will Mayo
February 1
“Once you start studying medicine you never get through with it.” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
January 31
“The school house is the proud monument to the desire of the people that their children shall receive a better education than they themselves had.” -Dr. Will Mayo
January 28
“Our country is no longer isolated from other countries”. -Dr. Charlie Mayo
January 27
“The mere possession of a diploma does not endow one with extraordinary knowledge on all possible medical subjects.” -Dr. Will Mayo
January 26
“Nothing endures unless it is of use in the world and in the economy of nature.”-Dr. Charlie Mayo
January 25
“When knowledge is translated into proper action we speak of it as wisdom.” -Dr. Will Mayo
January 24
“All who are benefited by community of life, especially the physician, owe something to the community.”-Dr. Charlie Mayo
January 21
“Of all cooperative enterprises public health is the most important and gives the greatest returns.” -Dr. Will Mayo
January 20
“Medicine is a profession for social service and it developed organization in response to social need.”-Dr. Charlie Mayo
January 19
“It never occurred to us that we could be anything but doctors.”-Dr. Will Mayo
January 18
“It is unfortunate that so few appreciate from what small causes diseases come.” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
January 17
“Surgery is more a matter of mental grasp than it is of handicraftsmanship.” -Dr. Will Mayo
January 14
“A surgical procedure should be planned so that the patient, with the least possible risk and loss of time, will receive the greatest possible benefit.” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
January 13
“Civilization and intellectual growth depend largely on preventive medicine.” -Dr. Will Mayo
January 12
“Medicine can be used only as people are educated to its accomplishments.” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
January 11
“Commercialism in medicine never leads to true satisfaction, and to maintain our self-respect is more precious than gold.” -Dr. Will Mayo
January 10
“Today the only thing that is permanent is change.” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
January 7
“Education must concern itself with the aspirations and needs of the common man.” -Dr. Will Mayo
January 6
“In the study of some apparently new problems we often make progress by reading the work of the great men of the past…” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
January 5
“American practice is too broad to be national. It had the scientific spirit, and science knows no country.” -Dr. Will Mayo
January 4
“The keynote of progress in the 20th century is system and organization, -in other words, ‘teamwork.’” -Dr. Charlie Mayo
January 3
“As we grow in learning, we more justly appreciate our dependence upon each other. The sum-total of medical knowledge is now so great and wide-spreading that it would be futile for one man to attempt to acquire, or for any one man to assume that he has, even a good working knowledge of any large part of the world. The very necessities of the case are driving practitioners into cooperation. The best interest of the patient is the only interest to be considered, and in order that the sick may have the benefit of advancing knowledge, union of forces is necessary.” -Dr. Will Mayo
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