Mayo Alumni Magazine 2006 Winter - MC4409-0106 - Mayo Clinic

Drs. Carl Soderstrom, Scott Litin and Joseph Fiore get into the groove.
system. If Dr. Litin took all the credit
for writing that one could argue he
rightfully deserves, I suspect it would
double or triple the size of his own
bibliography.”
But all of his time is not spent
at work.
Dr. Litin loves sports and his family.
His office space in Mayo Clinic’s
Baldwin Building shows it. Pictures of
his 15-year-old son Sam playing football
and his 19-year-old daughter
Cassie at graduation and prom are
pinned on the bulletin board. Pictures
of his wife Jolene and their children
crowd the walls. Pointing to a picture
of Jolene, he notes they celebrated their
30th anniversary last year. “She says the
30 years with me have been eight of the
best years of her life,”he adds with a
wink. “Seriously, she is a fantastic
person and is the glue that keeps our
family going strong.”Mixed in with his
medical awards and diplomas is a
plaque honoring his role as team
physician for Sam’s youth football team
and another one that commemorates
his induction into the Rochester
Racquetball Hall of Fame.
Several columns from the
Minneapolis Star Tribune’s sports
columnist Sid Hartman are on the walls.
Sid, also a WCCO radio personality,
often mentions Dr. Litin on the air and
calls him “a close personal friend.”Sid
Hartman was a childhood friend of Dr.
Litin’s father and is a loyal Mayo patient.
As he begins his tenure as
president of the Mayo Clinic Alumni
Association, Dr. Litin wants to continue
efforts to recognize and meet the needs
of the alumni members.
“Be it creating an exceptional
alumni association Web page to help
with communication or improving the
patient referral process, we want to keep
alumni connected to Mayo,”says
Dr. Litin.
Dr. Litin became involved in the
alumni association early in his career
when he visited with Gordon Moore,
M.D., (Psychiatry ’67) who was
secretary-treasurer and eventually
became the president of the
association. Dr. Litin offered to help
in any way possible and soon found
himself as the scientific program chair
at the International Meeting in
Scottsdale in the 1980s.
“Dr. Moore ‘opened the door’
for me to get involved with the Mayo
Clinic Alumni Association,”says
Dr. Litin. “So it seemed natural for me
to ask him for advice before I took
over as president. Gordon simply told
me to keep it fun,’”says Dr. Litin. “I
intend to do that.”
— Michael Dougherty
Winter 2006 Mayo Alumni 23