page_title: William James Mayo
section_title: Early years
hierarchical_section_title: William James Mayo / Early years
caption_attribution_description: William James Mayo
context_page_description: William James Mayo was a physician and surgeon in the United States and one of the seven founders of the Mayo Clinic. He and his brother, Charles Horace Mayo, both joined their father's private medical practice in Rochester, Minnesota, US, after graduating from medical school in the 1880s. In 1919, that practice became the not-for-profit Mayo Clinic.
  Augustus Stinchfield was also asked to join the medical practice in 1892 by William Worrall Mayo. Once Stinchfield was hired, W. W. Mayo retired at age 73. Others who were invited to be part of the enterprise were C. Graham, E. Starr Judd, Henry Stanley Plummer, Melvin Millet and Donald Balfour.
context_section_description: Will Mayo was born to William Worrall Mayo and his wife Louise in Le Sueur, Minnesota in his parents' home. As a child, William and his brother Charles frequently accompanied their father as he went about his business as a pioneer physician. They began by helping out with very menial tasks, and were gradually given more responsibility. Eventually, the boys were administering anesthesia and tying off blood vessels.
  One night at the age of 16, Will accompanied his father to an abandoned hotel where one of the elder Mayo's patients worked as the caretaker. The patient had just died and Mayo was going to perform an autopsy.  Will stood by and watched the procedure and after about an hour, it was time to go to another patient's home. Mayo asked his son to stay behind and clean up.  "Sew up the incisions and then tuck the sheet around the corpse. When you finish, go right home." Will nervously began to stitch up the incisions on the body and recounted the incident many years later saying, "I'm about as proud of the fact that I walked out of there, instead of ran, as of anything else I ever made myself do".
caption: William James Mayo
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