What does hope look like?

Denis A. Cortese, M.D."
President and Chief Executive Officer
Mayo Clinic

Everyone who comes to Mayo Clinic has a story. For some, that story may be one of years of struggle followed by a medical intervention that gave them a new lease on life. For others, it might be compassionate care that allowed them to deal with a difficult illness with dignity and grace. For still others, it may be an experience that inspired them to give back, by providing medical care, by volunteering their time, by supporting research that may lead to a future cure.

For many people, their Mayo Clinic story is a story of hope. Hope for healing. Hope for a cure. Hope that tomorrow we will be able to offer even better treatments for today’s most difficult medical conditions.

The story of Mayo Clinic can be best told through the experiences of our patients. Their stories give clues to the intangibles that make Mayo Clinic unique among medical institutions. In this annual report, you will find some of those stories — stories of finding hope and stories of offering hope to others.

Mayo Clinic’s ability to offer hope and healing traces back through our history. We started with a focus on patients, bringing together teams of medical professionals to provide the best care, engaging in continuous learning and research so that we could provide the latest and best treatments. We’ve been building on that foundation and refining our practices for more than 100 years. And our commitment to each patient and the highest-quality care remains at the center of everything we do.

We are honored every day by the trust people place in Mayo Clinic, and we’re inspired every day to do all that we can to live up to that trust by providing the best medicine has to offer.