The Mayo Clinic Alumni Association was formally incorporated in 1915. The association was created to:
- Promote and preserve excellence in medical practice, education and research
- Strengthen the bonds of Mayo Clinic heritage and shared human and professional experience
- Perpetuate Mayo Clinic’s standard of excellence
In
1919, Harold Foss, M.D., first President of the Mayo Clinic Alumni Association
(who in 1915 was appointed Surgeon in Chief and Superintendent of the new
Geisinger Hospital in Danville, PA) addressed the first meeting of the
association saying, “It is our hope that this Association will in time become
of national importance and a power in the advancement of American medicine. Its
obligations are bound to be tremendous for as loyal alumni the duty falls on us
of carrying accurately into every district of the land the teachings of the
Clinic from which some of the greatest developments in American medicine and
surgery are coming.”