Dear Answer Man: My husband and I winter in Arizona. We noticed this year, in TV ads, the Mayo Clinic location was referred to as Phoenix. It was our understanding it was located in Scottsdale and always was called that. When we returned to Minnesota and saw TV ads, we see it is referred to as Phoenix also. Has something changed? We drove by the building many times and it has not moved. — Lantha Stevens, Harmony
Dear Mrs. (and Mr.) Stevens: Unlike the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, the Mayo Clinic of Arizona is not trying to pull some sort of branding bait-and-switch on you.
While I am sure you did drive by a Mayo Clinic building or two in Scottsdale, there are Mayo Clinic buildings in Phoenix as well. However, even Answer Man understands your confusion, so to get a straight answer, I pitched the question to Jim McVeigh of Mayo Clinic Public Affairs in Arizona, and he knocked this one out of the park.
In the greater Phoenix metro area, Mayo Clinic has two campuses located 14 miles apart. The Scottsdale location is the primary campus for outpatient care, research and the Arizona branch of the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine. The Phoenix campus is where the 280-bed Mayo Clinic Hospital is located.
"We see it all as one campus," McVeigh said. "It’s definitely confusing to people from the outside. But the building in the commercial is the Phoenix location."
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I hope this clears up your desert dilemma. If not, there’s probably a Mayo Clinic ophthalmologist who can help you see things clearly.
Side note: While Answer Man might be all-knowing (how do you think I got this job?), my fingers are occasionally slightly bumbling. In Thursday’s Answer Man, I claimed that Mazeppa, the town in Wabasha County, was founded in 1877. Well, I was only off by 22 years. Mazeppa was founded in 1855. Now, please excuse me while I go practice my typing.
