Massachusetts General Hospital
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
|
| Main entrance of Massachusetts General Hospital | |
| Location | |
|---|---|
| Place | Boston Massachusetts, (US) |
| Organisation | |
| Care System | Medicare (US) |
| Hospital Type | Teaching |
| Affiliated Med.Sch. | Harvard Medical School |
| Services | |
| Emergency Dept. | Level I trauma center |
| Beds | 893 |
| Speciality | Unknown |
| History | |
| Founded | 1811 |
| Links | |
| Website | Homepage |
| See also | Hospitals in Massachusetts |
Massachusetts General Hospital (often abbreviated to "Mass General" or just "MGH") is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and biomedical research facility in Boston, Massachusetts. It is part of the consortium of hospitals which operates Boston MedFlight.
Founded in 1811 the original hospital was designed by the famous American architect Charles Bulfinch, it is owned and operated by Partners HealthCare (which also owns Brigham and Women's Hospital and North Shore Medical Center). It is the third oldest general hospital in the United States, and the oldest and largest in New England.
It was in the MGH Ether Dome on October 16, 1846 that ether was first demonstrated to the medical profession to produce insensibility to pain by William Thomas Green Morton, a Boston dentist. An operation was performed on that date to remove a blood vessel tumor from the neck of a Cambridge, MA printer, William Abbott. The MGH Chief of Surgery, John Collins Warren performed the surgery and remarked "Gentlemen this is no humbug." News of the remarkable new invention rapidly traveled around the world. The term anesthesia was suggested for the insensible state by Oliver Wendell Holmes, then a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. A modern anesthesia department was established at the hospital in 1936 under the leadership of Henry Knowles Beecher. The Ether Dome still exists and is open to the public. It is one of the oldest operating theaters in existence. It contains a remarkable painting of the event by Warren and Lucia Prosperi.
The hospital has 893 beds and admits over 44,000 patients each year. The surgical staff performs over 30,000 operations yearly. The obstetrics service handles over 3,500 births each year. The hospital handles over 1 million outpatients each year at its main campus, as well as its five satellite facilities in Boston at Back Bay, Charlestown, Chelsea, Everett, and Revere. Architect Hisham N. Ashkouri, working in conjunction with Hoskins Scott Taylor and Partners, provided the space designs and schematics for the pediatrics, neonatal intensive care, and in-patient related floors, as well as the third floor surgical suites and support facilities.
In 2003, MGH was named the state's first Magnet hospital by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, a subsidiary of the American Nurses Association. Magnet recognition represents the highest honor awarded for nursing excellence.
In the fall of 2004, the Yawkey Center for Outpatient Care opened. This 440,000 square feet, ten floor facility is the largest and most comprehensive outpatient building in New England.
With more than 10,000 employees, the hospital is the largest non-governmental employer in Boston. It is sometimes jokingly described as "The Medical-Industrial Complex."
Massachusetts General Hospital is affiliated with Harvard Medical School and is its original teaching hospital. MGH conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the United States, with an annual research budget of more than $400 million.
Though it has its own chief of psychiatry, MGH is closely affiliated with nearby McLean Hospital, which is also affiliated with Harvard Medical School.
MGH is considered one of the best hospitals in the world (hence the in-jest nickname, "Man's Greatest Hospital"). It consistently ranks as one of the country's top hospitals in U.S. News and World Report. Since 1994, MGH has been awarded the most research funding for an independent hospital by the National Institutes of Health [1], receiving over $285 million dollars alone in 2004 [2].
MGH is located at 55 Fruit Street in Boston, Massachusetts. The campus is in an area formerly known as the West End, adjacent to the Charles River and Beacon Hill. The closest MBTA stop is Charles/MGH on the Red Line. Ironically, Charles/MGH is the only stop on the main branch of the Red Line that is not handicapped accessible, although renovations are underway.
[edit] Trivia
- MGH nurses were featured in a four-part, front-page series in The Boston Globe entitled "Critical care: The making of an ICU nurse", which is being used in nursing schools throughout the country.
- MGH distributes Shasta soda beverages to its patients. All vending facilities vend Coca-Cola products. There are five main food service areas for the general public. They include the Eat Street Cafe in the lower level of the Ellison Building, the Blossom Street Cafe in the Cox lobby, Coffee Central, Tea Leaves and Coffee Beans in the Wang Ambulatory Care Center, and a cafe in the Yawkey outpatient center.
- MGH is referred to as "MBH" or "Man's Best Hospital" in Samuel Shem's satirical novel, The House of God; also as "Man's Greatest Hospital".
- There have been at least three mentions of Massachusetts General Hospital in fictional television series and movies:
- In the long-running series M*A*S*H, the character Major Charles Emerson Winchester III was said to have previously been the hospital's Head of Thoracic Surgery.
- In the series Arrested Development, Tobias Fünke worked at the hospital as chief resident during his psychiatry training.
- In the series Alias, Arvin Sloane mentions that Sydney's psychiatrist trained at the hospital.
- In the movie Sleeping with the Enemy, an MGH neurologist gives the characters of Julia Roberts and Patrick Bergen a ride on his sailboat off the coast of Cape Cod.
- In the movie Malice, the lead character played by Alec Baldwin is an MGH-trained surgeon with a "God complex".
- The hospital's morgue previously faced Allen St., which provides the hospital employee's code-name or euphemism for the morgue, or even death in general — "moved to Allen St.".
