Mayo Clinic Announces Outcome of Annual Board of
Trustees' Elections

Friday, February 20, 2004

Media Contact:
Lynn Closway
Mayo Clinic
480-301-4222
closway.lynn@mayo.edu

For Immediate Release - February 20, 2004

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - The Mayo Clinic Board of Trustees today elected members at its quarterly meeting in Scottsdale, Ariz. The board also elected new executive committee members and officers at the meeting.

No new public trustees were elected for this calendar year. Robert Allen, John Dasburg and Patricia Mitchell were re-elected as public members of the Board of Trustees. Also at today's meeting, Thomas Johnson, a public trustee, was elected an emeritus board member.

The following Mayo Clinic staff members were elected to two-year terms as internal trustees and also to the board's executive committee: George Bartley, M.D.; Denis Cortese, M.D.; Jack Leventhal, M.D.; Robert Nesse, M.D.; Craig Smoldt; and Victor Trastek, M.D. The board also elected Jeffrey Korsmo and Shirley Weis to one-year terms as internal trustees.

In addition, the board elected its officers at the meeting, including Bert Getz, chair; Denis Cortese, M.D., president; Hugh Smith, M.D., and Robert Smoldt, vice presidents; Jeffrey Bolton, chief financial officer; and Jon Oviatt, J.D., secretary.

The board also recognized today two physicians awarded Mayo Clinic College of Medicine named professorships.

Ronald Hinder, M.D., Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic general surgeon, is the recipient of the Joe M. and Ruth Roberts Professorship in Surgery award. Dr. Hinder joined the staff of Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., in 1996. Dr. Hinder is chair of the Department of Surgery and a professor of surgery at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. His research interests include: laparoscopic antireflux surgery, long-term results of antireflux surgery, study of vagotomy associated with antireflux surgery, and Barrett's esophagus and cell death.

Mr. and Mrs. Roberts founded this professorship in 1977. The Roberts' professorship was designated for surgery in honor of their son, Stanley, a former surgical resident at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.

The trustees also honored Gregory Poland, M.D., as a named professor. Dr. Poland is a Mayo Clinic internal medicine specialist and vaccinologist. Dr. Poland is a professor of medicine at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. He is the director of Mayo Clinic's Vaccine Research Group, which investigates vaccine response and novel vaccines that could affect public health. He also serves at Mayo Clinic as the director of the Immunization Clinic and the Program in Translational Immunovirology and Biodefense, and he is the associate chair for research for the Department of Medicine. Dr. Poland is the president of the International Society for Vaccines and the American editor for the journal Vaccine.

Dr. Poland was appointed as the Mary Lowell Leary Professor in Medicine. As a longtime patient and friend of Mayo Clinic, along with her parents, Ms. Leary wished to honor the Lowell family and the care she received at Mayo Clinic when she established the professorship in 1980.

Named professorships at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine represent the highest academic distinction for a faculty member. Faculty are appointed to a professorship through nomination and endorsement of their peers and then confirmed by Mayo Clinic senior leadership. Appointed individuals are recognized for distinguished achievement in their specialty areas and service to the institution. The Mayo Clinic Board of Trustees confers the named professorship in person at a board meeting. Named professors hold the appointment for the duration of their active Mayo Clinic careers. Upon an incumbent's retirement, a new professor is appointed. The professorship remains in perpetuity. These professorships are named in honor of the benefactors. The gift funds, which may be unrestricted or focused on a specific medical area, are held in endowment. All income from the endowed professorships supports Mayo Clinic programs in medical education and research.

The Mayo Clinic Board of Trustees, a 30-member group of public representatives and Mayo physicians and administrators, is responsible for patient care, medical education and research activities at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla.; Rochester, Minn.; and Scottsdale, Ariz.

Mayo Clinic is a private group practice of medicine dedicated to providing diagnosis and treatment of patient illnesses through a systematic focus on individual patient needs. As a leading academic medical center in the Southwest, Mayo Clinic focuses on providing specialty and surgical care in more than 65 disciplines at its outpatient facility in north Scottsdale and at Mayo Clinic Hospital. The 205-bed hospital is located at 56th Street and Mayo Boulevard (north of Bell Road) in northeast Phoenix, and provides inpatient care to support the medical and surgical specialties of the clinic, which is located at 134th Street and Shea Boulevard in Scottsdale.

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