Brooke Army Medical Center
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio is part of the United States Army Health Services Command. It is a University of Texas Health Science Center and USUHS teaching hospital and contains the Army Burn Center.
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[edit] The History of Brooke Army Medical Center
- 1870 City of San Antonio donates 40 acres for Army Post
- 1886 Log cabin dispensary built
- 1907 Station Hospital built to accommodate 84 beds
- 1936 Construction began for BAMC Main
- 1938 BAMC Main opens with 418 operating beds
- 1941-1945 BAMC expanded by converting barracks to hospital wards
- 1983 Design authority issued for replacement facility
- 1985 Concept design started for the new BAMC
- 1992 Construction of new BAMC starts
- 1996 New BAMC opens
[edit] Brigadier General Roger Brooke
Brigadier General Roger Brooke, United States Army, was born in Sandy Springs, Maryland, June 14, 1878. He attended the George School at Newton, Pennsylvania, and later entered the University of Maryland Medical School in Baltimore, where he graduated in 1900.
General Brooke joined the Medical Corps, United States Army, June 29, 1901, as a First Lieutenant. After graduating from the Army Medical School in 1902, he was assigned to the Philippine Islands for a tour of duty.
Other tours of duty included Fort Bayard, New Mexico, Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and Attending Surgeon in Washington, D.C. He spent the period of the World War in instruction work, serving from September 1917 to December 1918, first as Senior Instructor and later as Commanding Officer of the Medical Officers' Training Camp, Camp Greenleaf, Georgia, where 10,000 officers and 70,000 enlisted men were prepared for service with the armed forces. For this he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. He was appointed Brigadier General on January 29, 1938.
[edit] Brooke Army Medical Center
BAMC has a proud and venerable history which dates back to 1879 when the first Post Hospital endured as a small medical dispensary located in a single story wooden building.
During the early years the Post hospital was in temporary structures and it was not until 1886 that the first permanent hospital was built. In 1907 an 84-bed Station hospital was constructed on the west side of post. This made the hospital among the nation's most modern.
In 1929, BG Roger Brooke assumed command of the Station Hospital, a position he held until 1933. A critical thinker and true visionary among his peers, BG Brooke is credited with instituting the first routine chest X-ray in military medicine.
In July 1936, the cornerstone was laid for the construction of a replacement Station Hospital. By November 1937, the modern 418 bed hospital was operational. The total cost of the construction was $3 million dollars. The new hospital was the first in a series of moves which changed Ft Sam Houston from an Infantry Post to a Medical Post.
In 1941, BAMC prepared for an overwhelming flow of casualties from WWII battlefields by converting a 220 enlisted barracks into additional patient wards. This facility would prove instrumental in providing quality, responsive healthcare to wounded soldiers and would later become BAMC Headquarters. In 1942, the Station Hospital was renamed Brooke General Hospital in BG Brooke's honor.
Beach PavilionIn 1944, BAMC converted a Cavalry Battalion barracks into a convalescent unit to accommodate the tremendous flow of casualties from WWII. This building later became Beach Pavilion. Beach housed a substantial portion of BAMC assets to include numerous patient wards and specialty clinics.
In 1946, Fort Sam Houston was chosen as the new site for the U.S. Army Medical Field Service School. The decision to centralize the Army's medical research and training at one location resulted in the re-naming of Brooke General Hospital to Brooke Army Medical Center.
In September 1987, the official groundbreaking took place for the construction of the Brooke Army Medical Center replacement hospital. On July 18, 1995, ownership of the replacement hospital was given to the BAMC Commander by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during the key turnover ceremony. On March 14, 1996, the New Brooke Army Medical Center was officially dedicated and on 13 April, BAMC opened for business with the successful transfer of inpatients from the "old" BAMC to the "new" BAMC.
Under the most recent BRAC, BAMC is expected to expand with the arrival and co-location of the 59th Medical Wing (USAF), which will occur as Wilford Hall Medical Center (located at Lackland AFB on the other side of San Antonio) closes.
