From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bellevue Hospital Center, founded on March
31,1736 and most often referenced just as
"Bellevue", is the oldest public hospital
in the United
States. It is best known outside New York City from many
literary, film and television mentions as "Bellevue," most always
in reference to its psychiatric facilities. It is
located in New York
City and has been the site of countless milestones in the
history of medicine.[1]
From the first ambulance service and the first maternity ward, to
the development of the Polio vaccine, to the Nobel Prize winning
work of Cournand and Richards in developing the
world's first cardiopulmonary catheterization laboratory, Bellevue
Hospital has been the training ground for many of America's leaders
in medicine. Since 1968, it has been affiliated with the NYU School of
Medicine. It is owned by the New York
City Health and Hospitals Corporation and is open to patients
of all backgrounds, irrespective of ability to pay. Lynda D. Curtis
became its Executive Director in 2005.
- Bellevue is well known for its psychiatric facilities and as a triage center during
disasters.
- Bellevue opened a new ambulatory care building dedicated to
serving over 300,000 outpatients a year.
- Bellevue serves as a primary referral center for cardiac catheterization,
catheter-based treatment of heart rhythm disorders, cardiovascular surgery, neurosurgery, physical rehabilitation, and Hansen's disease (leprosy). The leader of
The
Westies One Lung Curran visited the tuberculosis ward every
week for a regular check up from the 1920s to 1950's.
- Bellevue recently opened burn units for pediatric (children)
and adult burn patients.
- Bellevue also serves as a teaching hospital for the nation's
most prestigious dermatology training institute at New York
University.
As the flagship facility of New York City’s Health
and Hospitals Corporation, Bellevue handles nearly 500,000 outpatient clinic visits,100,000 emergency
patients, and some 26,000 inpatients each year. More than 80 percent
of Bellevue’s patients come from the city’s medically underserved
populations. Today, the hospital occupies a 25-story patient care
facility, with a state of the art ICU, digital
radiology communication and a new modern outpatient facility. The
hospital has an attending physician staff of 1,800
and a house staff of more than 1000.
Timeline
- 1799: First maternity ward in the United States
- 1808: First ligation of the femoral artery
for an aneurysm
- 1811: New York City purchases Belle Vue farm and builds a new
alms house.
- 1818: First ligation
of the innominate artery.
- 1819: New York City University faculty began to conduct
clinical instruction at Bellevue Hospital.
- 1849: Amphitheatre for clinical teaching and surgery
opened.
- 1854: Bellevue physicians promote the "Bone Bill," which
legalized dissection of cadavers for anatomical studies.
- 1856: Bellevue physicians popularize the use of the hypodermic
syringe.
- 1861: The Bellevue Hospital Medical College, the first medical
college in New York with connections to a hospital, is
founded.
- 1862: Austin Flint murmur is named for Austin Flint,
prominent Bellevue Hospital cardiologist.
- 1866: Bellevue physicians are instrumental in developing New
York City's sanitary code, the first in the world.
- 1867: One of the nation's first outpatient departments
connected to a hospital (the "Bureau of Medical and Surgical Relief
for the Out of Door Poor") is established at Bellevue.
- 1868: Bellevue physician Stephen Smith becomes first
commissioner of public health in New York City. Smith initiated a
national campaign for health vaccinations.
- 1869: Bellevue establishes the second hospital-based, emergency
ambulance service in the United States. [2]
- 1873: The nation's first nursing school based on Florence
Nightingale's principles opens at Bellevue.
- 1874: Bellevue inaugurates the nation's first children's
clinic.
- 1876: Bellevue's emergency pavilion, the first in the nation,
opens.
- 1879: A pavilion for the insane is erected within hospital
grounds—an approach considered revolutionary at the time.
- 1883: Bellevue initiates a residency
training program that is still the model for surgical training
worldwide.
- 1884: The Carnegie Laboratory, the nation's first pathology and bacteriology laboratory, is founded at
Bellevue.
- 1888: The first American nursing school for men is
established.
- 1889: Bellevue physicians are first to report that tuberculosis is a
preventable disease.
- 1892: Bellevue establishes a dedicated unit for alcoholics.
- 1894: First successful operation of the abdomen for a pistol
shot wound.
- 1903: In the midst of a tuberculosis epidemic, the Bellevue Chest Service is
founded.
- 1911: Bellevue opens the nation's first ambulatory cardiac
clinic.
- 1917: First ward for metabolic disorders in the Western
Hemisphere.
- 1919: German spy and saboteur Fritz Joubert Duquesne escapes
the hospital prison ward after having feigned paralysis for nearly
two years.[3]
- 1933: William Tillett discovers streptokinase, later used for
the acute treatment of myocardial infarction.
- 1935: Public School 106, the first public school for the
emotionally disturbed children located in a public hospital opened
at Bellevue.
- 1938: Paul Zoll completes internship at Bellevue and later
develops the first cardiac pacemaker
- 1939: Bellevue becomes the site of the world's first hospital
catastrophe unit.
- 1940: The world's first cardiopulmonary
laboratory is established at Bellevue by Andre Cournand and
Dickinson Richards, who win the Nobel Prize
in Physiology or Medicine in 1956.
- 1952: Nation's first heart failure clinic opens, staffed by Eugene
Braunwald
- 1960: Nina Starr Braunwald performs the first mitral valve
replacement
- 1962: Bellevue establishes the first intensive care unit in a municipal hospital.
- 1967: Bellevue physicians perform the first cadaver kidney
transplant.
- 1970: Bellevue joins the New York
City Health and Hospitals Corporation as one of 11 acute care
hospitals.
- 1971: The first active immunization of serum hepatitis B is developed by Bellevue
physicians.
- 1981: Bellevue is certified as an official heart station for
cardiac emergencies.
- 1982: Designated as a micro-surgical reimplantation center for
the City of New York.
- 1983: Designated as a level one trauma center.
- 1988: Recognized by the City's Emergency Medical Services as a
head and spinal cord injury center.
- 1990: Establishes an accredited teaching program in Emergency
Medicine.
- 1996: Bellevue plays a key role in the development of the
"Triple Drug Cocktail" or HAART, a breakthrough in the treatment of
AIDS.
References
External
links
Further
reading
- Book: The Making of a Surgeon. Author: William A. Nolen, M.D.
ISBN 0-922811-46-6 An autobiographical, detailed account of
residency at Bellevue Hospital.
- Book and Audiobook: Weekends at Bellevue -- Nine Years on the
Night Shift at the Psych ER. Author Julie Holland, M.D. ISBN-13:
9780553807660
Coordinates: 40°44′21″N 73°58′31″W / 40.7393°N
73.9753°W / 40.7393;
-73.9753
Wikis
Quiz
Facts
Map
Search
