French Ambassador to the United States visits Mayo Clinic

ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – The French Ambassador to the United States, Philippe Étienne, made a stop in Rochester to check out the Mayo Clinic on Friday.

“I am really looking forward to the strengthening of the collaboration- especially between the U.S. and France, but especially between the relationship between France and Minnesota,” Étienne said.

The relationship between Mayo Clinic and France’s medical industry is strong, with all of the top French medical institute partnering with the medical giant.

“France is in the top five co-authors of scientific publication produced by the Mayo Clinic,” Étienne said.

It’s a partnership that’s been building 100 years after Dr. Charles Mayo visited Paris to meet Marie Currie who went on to become the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.

“This long-standing research that happens here at Mayo with everything from personal medicine to the work that goes on in collaboration with France and other countries only must continue,” Senator Amy Klobuchar said.

Because of that strong relationship the Mayo brothers helped solidify with France 100 years ago, it still remains today.

“It was that very visit that started the highly celebrated relationship and research effort in fields that then revolutionized the medicine,” Mayo Clinic Cardiology Researcher Andre Terzic, M.D. said.

Still today, hundreds of thousands of people come from all over the world to visit the Mayo Clinic.

“Sometimes, they find out their diagnosis in three hours or four hours, and they’ve been waiting for three years or four years. That’s what happens at Mayo Clinic,” Senator Klobuchar said.

After Dr. Charles Mayo’s visit with Curie, he came back to Rochester and named the Curie Hospital after her in 1920. It was located at what is now Kahler Hotel’s Grand Grill, and it had 36 beds for Mayo Clinic patients who needed X-ray or radium treatments. It closed in 1962.

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