Mayo Clinic lab tech Tasha Pinckney, along with her dad and husband, will participate in this year's American Birkebeiner as "Berkie Royalty" during the largest cross country ski race in North America. 

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"Cross country skiing is great if you live in a small country." Steven Wright

When NBC News correspondent Kristen Dahlgren came to Mayo Clinic to report on a new study, she thought it was just another routine assignment. Three years later, she credits it with saving her life.

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The crew inside Mayo One, Mayo Clinic Ambulance Service's emergency medical helicopters, has everything it needs to handle emergencies and get patients safely to a Mayo hospital.

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"It is often in the darkest skies that we see the brightest stars." Richard Paul Evans

Chuck and Nicole Marino's mobile gaming station, Hyperspace Starcade, provided a nice break from reality for kids at Mayo Eugenio Children's Center last month.

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A recently uncovered Mayovox article from 1982 explains how a handful of Mayo staff banded together to buy Apple computers and form a computer club, where they began exploring the new timesaving device.

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"Can you explain what the Internet is?" Katie Couric (1994)

In the year since they lost their son Caleb to leukemia, Jeff and Tori Ulrichs and their son, Keegan, have begun honoring Caleb's memory by providing meals for families whose children receive care at Mayo.

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An eclectic group of Mayo patients found themselves woven into a lasting friendship formed by the support they showed one another through treatments for prostate cancer.

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"Good friends are hard to find, harder to leave and impossible to forget." G. Randolf

Each year, In the Loop, like many of the world’s great news organizations, looks back and shares some favorite stories of the year gone by. It’s an edifying exercise, and it gives us a story to publish around the holidays that doesn’t feel like work. (Especially when we use the same clever packaging every year.)

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"We are all storytellers. We live in a network of stories. There isn’t a stronger connection between people than storytelling." Jimmy Neil Smith

What with it being a holiday week and all, we wanted share a holiday message from a couple of our favorite Mayo musicians, Drs. Elvis Francois and William Robinson, who recently posted a rendition of “Oh Holy Night” along with this:  To the patients who will be in and out of [...]

Ever wonder how Santa knows where to find all the good girls and boys who end up in the hospital at Christmastime? Turns out, he has an advance team: Mrs. Claus. The missus — also known as retired Child Life Specialist Jane Heser — stopped by Mayo Clinic Children's Center earlier this month and did her thing. "I tell the children, 'I'm here to find where you are so that Santa will know how to find you,'" Heser tells us.

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"I bought my brother some gift wrap for Christmas. I took it to the gift wrap department and told them to wrap it, but in a different print so he would know when to stop unwrapping." Steven Wright

Spending the holidays in the hospital isn't on anyone's wish list, which is why Mayo Clinic and the Rochester community team up to bring extra cheer to families during December.

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After more than 40 years at Mayo Clinic and 60 years overall in health care, Gary Campbell, a nurse in Psychiatry and Psychology, is calling it a career.

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"When you like your work every day is a holiday." Frank Tyger

Ashley and Jeremy Scheffert, whose son Ethan passed away in 2015, join friends and family to collect and donate toys and gift cards to Mayo Clinic each Christmas in honor of Ethan.

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Mayo Clinic Hospice volunteers once again rolled up their sleeves and pulled out their rolling pins to bake dozens of cookies, bars and other holiday delights for hospice patients.

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"Cookies are made of butter and love." Norwegian proverb

Heather Haberman is on a mission to make sure every child receives a toy each time they're hospitalized. It's a mission that was inspired by her son, Jessy.

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Ginger Brewer and her son, Mike, didn't set out to help a total stranger navigate the process of having a liver transplant. But a chance meeting led to just that.

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"How beautiful a day can be when kindness touches it." George Elliston