Family Practice

On any given week, my work might take me from a hospital corridor to a crowded reception to someone’s kitchen table. Regardless of the setting, I keep meeting the same person in different guises: someone whose ties to Cleveland Clinic run back a generation. Or two. Or three.

I once filed these away as happy coincidences. I’ve come to see them as a through line.

In this issue of Cleveland Clinic Magazine, you’ll meet nine families with deep connections to this place. Cleveland Clinic isn’t just a backdrop for their stories. It’s a character in its own right.

For the Kings, work is a family affair. Caregivers Myra and Gary met at Cleveland Clinic, married and never left. Many of their relatives also have been employed here in a variety of positions, from clinical to administration to facilities. As Domonic King puts it: “You can’t really tell our family’s story without talking about Cleveland Clinic.”

The Jacobs family rides with Team Spin for Stu (that’s them on our cover) in VeloSano Bike to Cure for Morgan’s father and Michael’s parents, all lost to cancer. Their two young sons have grown up with the ride, running lemonade stands where every dollar goes to cancer research — an early lesson, their parents hope, in repairing the world. “Family isn’t just blood relatives,” Morgan says. “Family is the people who show up for you — and you show up for them.”

Then there are the Hancocks. Kelly got her start as a bedside nurse and is now part of Cleveland Clinic’s senior leadership team. Her daughter, Amanda, chose nursing, too. When Amanda went through nursing school during the pandemic, Kelly ran flashcards with her — and all but went through nursing school a second time herself. “We’ve always been close,” Kelly says. “But I think we’re even closer now because we have a shared love for this profession.”

None of this is metaphorical. In fact, it’s right there in Cleveland Clinic’s Care Priorities, spelled out plainly and purposefully: We care for patients as if they were our own family, and we care for one another the same way.

That may be what these families have been telling us all along. People don’t entrust generation after generation to an institution that only makes promises. They keep coming back when the promises are kept.

From our Cleveland Clinic family to yours — thank you. 

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Email ClevelandClinicMag@ccf.org or drop us a line at Cleveland Clinic Magazine, Philanthropy, 9500 Euclid Avenue/HS1-15, Cleveland, OH 44195-0002.