Launched in 1916 as a local clinic by six doctors in Marshfield, Wis., Marshfield Clinic has become one of the largest private-group medical practices in the United States.

Launched in 1916 as a local clinic by six doctors in Marshfield, Wis., Marshfield Clinic has become one of the largest private-group medical practices in the United States.

"We have grown to 740 physicians and over 6,000 additional staff," Executive Director Reed Hall says.

Today, the clinic has 41 regional centers throughout Wisconsin, including facilities in Eau Claire, Minocqua, Wausau, Chippewa Falls, Menomonie, Mercer, Rice Lake and Wisconsin Rapids.

"It's a history of growth," Hall says.

Committed to Research
Research has long been critical at Marshfield Clinic. "It's part of our mission statement," Dr. Karl Ulrich, president and CEO, says. In 1959, the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation was established.

Ulrich says the clinic has the largest DNA bank in the country. "We currently have over 19,000 samples that have been donated by our patients in north-central Wisconsin and western Wisconsin," he says.

"The beauty of that we have sophisticated electronic medical records that we've developed internally here." That means Marshfield Clinic staff can often use family history when making a diagnosis.

‘Medical Sleuthing'
In 2003, the clinic's dedication to research helped identify and contain the spread of a rare viral disease. Marshfield's veterinary, dermatology, pathology and infectious disease staffs worked together to diagnose a young girl with monkeypox - making it the first identified case of the disease in the Western Hemisphere.

The disease, with symptoms that mimic those of smallpox, occurs mostly in central and western Africa. Doctors at Marshfield Clinic had a mystery to unravel when a family from Dorchester, Wis., brought their young daughter in with symptoms including a skin rash and fever.

"The girl came through the emergency room with odd signs and symptoms of some kind of infectious disease," Hall says. "Our infectious disease specialists tried to find out what was going on," he adds, noting they initially were unsure whether the girl's illness was viral or bacterial.

"We are fortunate that we also have veterinary pathology services at Marshfield," Hall says. The laboratory had the family's pet prairie dog, which had died previously. "We researched where the prairie dog came from and looked for a particular virus in concert with the CDC in Atlanta," Hall continues. "It was really a combination of medical sleuthing between veterinary services, infectious diseases, pathology and dermatology."

Staff discovered that the prairie dog, purchased at a pet swap, had previously come in contact with a Gambian rat from Ghana. The pet, in turn, had bitten the little girl. Fortunately, physicians were able to successfully treat the girl. "The real story is not so much the unfolding of how this was discovered," Hall says, "but that there were no more occurrences."

‘A Different Frontier'
Marshfield Clinic is continuing its commitment to medical research by building the Laird Center for Medical Research, a $40 million facility named for former Congressman and U.S. Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird, a noted advocate of medical research. The 112,300-square-foot facility is being funded in part through an $11 million grant from the federal government, along with $12 million from Marshfield Clinic and $17 in donations.