Mayo Clinic Mission and Values

A Mayo Clinic medical instructor demonstrates a technique on a medical mannequin.

Mission

Inspiring hope and promoting health through integrated clinical practice, education and research.

Vision

Transforming medicine to connect and cure as the global authority in the care of serious or complex disease.

Values

  • Our institutional primary value: The needs of the patient come first.
  • Our core values: Respect, integrity, compassion, healing, teamwork, innovation, excellence and stewardship.
  • Our values-driven culture.

These are the foundation of Mayo Clinic. We see our values in action in the moments we spend with one another, our patients, their families, our colleagues and our communities.

Our primary value: The needs of the patient come first

Respect: Treat everyone in our diverse community, including patients, their families and colleagues, with dignity.

Integrity: Adhere to the highest standards of professionalism, ethics and personal responsibility, worthy of the trust our patients place in us.

Compassion: Provide the best care, treating patients and family members with sensitivity and empathy.

Healing: Inspire hope and nurture the well-being of the whole person, respecting physical, emotional and spiritual needs.

Teamwork: Value the contributions of all, blending the skills of individual staff members in unsurpassed collaboration.

Innovation: Infuse and energize the organization, enhancing the lives of those we serve, through the creative ideas and unique talents of each employee.

Excellence: Deliver the best outcomes and highest quality service through the dedicated effort of every team member.

Stewardship: Sustain and reinvest in our mission and extended communities by wisely managing our human, natural and material resources.

Values in Action

When we put our values in action, we perpetuate our values-driven culture and achieve our goals to cure, connect and transform healthcare.

[Music playing]

Recently, Julie Mai and Stephanie Steffen were sent by helicopter to check on an expectant mother at a remote clinic.

They quickly realized that the baby's life depended on an emergency delivery.

Without hesitation, they went to work...

Values in Action

Stephanie Steffen, LRT, RRT-NPS
Respiratory Therapist
Pediatric Respiratory Care:

You don't realize the power of a team until you are in a very high stress situation.

Julie Mai, RN, RNC-NIC, C-NPT
Neonatal Transport Nurse
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit:

We heard there was a pregnant mom in the clinic -- who was 23 weeks, so very early -- and I remember Dr. Carey telling me 'you probably won't have to deliver her, you'll probably just go and, oh, she'll be fine and you won't deliver'. --

Stephanie:
You called my phone in the unit and told me that I was going out on transport, because my pager hadn't gone off. So it was then well was like oh, my gosh, I'm not ready. I need to go change, and I had no idea that this was happening and I didn't know what I was going for. And you just told me, hey, we're gonna go for a 23-week baby in a clinic and we're just going to, you know, go assess the situation and check it out. And I was like, oh, okay [laughter from Julie]-- sounds good! I had no idea, you know, all the extra stuff.

Julie:
And then when we got there and decided, oh, yep, we're gonna deliver a baby in a clinic,

Stephanie:
and they were giving us the stats of where mom was at, it was definitely evident that we were going to be delivering. When we told them like, this is going to happen. A lot of people whom I will never know, really went into action and helped us out.

Julie:
Because everyone did their job so well that we literally, yes, could just focus on what we do, how we resuscitate these babies and we didn't have to worry about all the other stuff.

Stephanie:
I mean, the amount of people that were there that day was very helpful.

Julie:
The maintenance man that was able to turn up the heat, because with the little babies, they're like a pound. So we need to keep them warm and we didn't have our warmer. And so just the fact of like, oh yeah, I can turn up the building heat. Everybody did their job so seamlessly.

Stephanie:
We asked what we needed and somebody was there to do it or found a way to get it done.

Julie:
Yup

Stephanie:
And I think that part made us focus on the baby and the teamwork of everybody else helped us do our job and got that baby delivered, resuscitated, and back to Mayo safely.

I mean, that patient went home and is thriving because of all the people there that day.

When one of the most difficult times of their life, we get to be the light for them. And that's...

Julie:
It's powerful...

Stephanie:
Very rewarding.

Julie:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
There's a lot of people that always ask me how I do what I do. I just tell them, the day I get to help a mom hold for the first time, or I get to see them leave the hospital with tears in their eyes, just so happy to finally get to go and live a normal life.

Those are the reasons I work in the NICU .

Values in Action

[Music playing]

In the above video, two Mayo Clinic employees sit down to reflect on an event when they were sent by helicopter to assist a mother at a remote clinic. This is one of many examples where our staff put the needs of the patient first.

Our Commitment

Mayo Clinic staff and students have a shared commitment to a set of values that guide our direction and help us make decisions that bring hope and healing to our patients.

In living out our values, we make Mayo Clinic. Our values are in everything we have done in the past, how we work in the present and our guide into the future.

Learn more: The Mayo Clinic Program in Professionalism and Values perpetuates our Model of Professionalism, education on our primary and core values, and our values-driven culture.