Parkland Memorial Hospital

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Parkland Memorial Hospital is a hospital located at 5201 Harry Hines Boulevard, just west of Oak Lawn in north Dallas, Texas (USA).

The hospital opened in 1894 and got its name because it was built on city land originally intended for a park.^[1] In 1954, it moved to its current location, about a mile from the original site.

Parkland is the only publicly supported hospital in Dallas County; funds are primarily provided by a specially designated property tax on Dallas County residents. Parkland serves as one of the area's three Level 1 Trauma centers, operates one of a handful of burn units in the entire state (where the leading Burns resuscitation formula in use worldwide was developed) , and is the major teaching hospital of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Also, Parkland has the distinction of delivering more babies under one roof than any other hospital in the nation: averaging 15-16,000 deliveries per year.

After he was shot on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 1 p.m in Treatment Room 1. At the same time, Texas Governor John Connally was being treated in Treatment Room 2. Two days after the assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald was rushed to Parkland after being shot by Jack Ruby and died there. Coincidentally, Ruby died of a pulmonary embolism at Parkland Hospital on January 3, 1967. Since 1963, the emergency room has been remodeled. However, a plaque has been mounted to mark the spot at which the President was treated.

Since Parkland is a public hospital, it must accept patients from Dallas County regardless of their ability to pay. As such, poorer residents from surrounding counties that do not have public hospitals of their own (and which are not subject to the special property tax used for Parkland operations) regularly seek treatment at Parkland. This has caused financial turmoil for the hospital in recent years, as the surrounding counties are not required by law to reimburse Parkland for services provided to their residents (though some of them have occasionally done so). Also, Parkland does not request information on a patient's legal status (unlike John Peter Smith Hospital in Tarrant County, which does request this information).

At 968 licensed beds, Parkland ranks among the largest teaching hospitals in the nation.

Parkland serves as both a primary care center for Dallas County residents, and as a medical and surgical referral center for North Texas and parts of Southern Okalahoma. Thus, virtually all medical and surgical subspecialties are represented—which makes Parkland a destination for post-graduate medical training.