Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic: Inside One of the World’s Most Admired Service Organizations

CHAPTER 4PRACTICING DESTINATION MEDICINE

“My mother injured her back weeding my garden, but, of course, she didn’t tell me,” reports a Mayo Clinic physician. “And then she flew three hours back to her home, but she could hardly walk off the plane—pain was going down her leg, and it was numb.” After three days, the Mayo physician had a phone call from her mother to report that she was not getting any better. “I told her she had an extruded disc in her back, and told her to see a doctor. Tell him you need a spine evaluation.” The mother followed her daughter’s orders. Her doctors were associated with one of the best-known hospitals in the country, “But after five weeks of running around and nobody really listening to her, they injected her knee, ...