"When the Physician Becomes the Patient:
Mayo Clinic Neurologist Alexander MacLean, Cortisone and Disability"
Presenter: Christopher J. Boes, M.D.
Professor of Neurology and Professor of History of Medicine
Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN
Date: Tuesday, October 20, 2026
Time: 6:00-7:00 p.m. CT
Location: Leighton Auditorium, Siebens Building, second floor
Mayo Clinic campus, Rochester, MN
Zoom option available | REGISTER HERE
Imagine this: It’s 1952. You are 44 years old, a Mayo Clinic physician with a promising career, a wife and six children. Severe rheumatoid arthritis has left you unable to practice medicine. What do you do next?
For Mayo Clinic neurologist Alexander MacLean, this was not hypothetical. Once described as “destined to greatness,” MacLean became one of the earliest patients treated with cortisone, experiencing both its dramatic benefits and its serious consequences.
His little-known story intertwines pioneering neurology, one of medicine’s great therapeutic breakthroughs, disability, financial hardship and the profound transformation from physician to patient.