Bellevue Hospital Center

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Location
Bellevue Hospital Center

View from outpatient's room IA. Aug 4, 1950
Place	462 First Avenue New York, New York 10016 (US)
Organization
Care System	Medicaid, Medicare, Public
Hospital Type	Teaching
Affiliated University	New York University
Services
Emergency Dept.	I
Beds	809^[1]
History
Founded	1736
Links
Website	Homepage
See also	Hospitals in the United States

Bellevue Hospital Center, founded in 1736, is the oldest public hospital in the United States. 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 it's Executive Director in 2005.

Bellevue is well known for its psychiatric facilities and as a triage center during disasters.
Bellevue has seen many literary figures come through its doors, the most prominent being the Beat poet Gregory Corso, and was portrayed in a number of motion pictures, including The Lost Weekend and The Sleeping City.
Bellevue Hospital recently opened a new ambulatory care building dedicated to serving over 300,000 outpatients a year.
Bellevue serves as a tertiary 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 1920's to 1950's.
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.

[edit] Historical milestones at Bellevue Hospital

1799: The first maternity ward in the United States is established at Bellevue.
1808: Bellevue physicians perform the first ligation of the femoral artery for an aneurysm.
1811: New York City purchased the Belle Vue farm and built a new alms house.
1818: Bellevue physicians performed the first litigation of the innominate artery.
1819: New York City University faculty began to conduct clinical instruction at Bellevue Hospital.
1849: The famous Bellevue amphitheatre for clinical teaching and surgery opened.
1854: Bellevue physicians promoted the passage of the "Bone Bill," which legalized dissection of cadavers for anatomical studies, a significant advacne in medical research.
1856: Bellevue physicians popularized 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: 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 was named first commissioner of public health in New York City. Smith initiated a national campaign for health vaccinations.
1869: Bellevue establishes the world's first hospital-based ambulance service.
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 was 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 at Bellevue.
1889: Bellevue physicians are first to report that tuberculosis is a preventable disease.
1892: Bellevue established a dedicated unit for alcoholics.
1894: Bellevue surgeons performed the 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.
1913: Bellevue established the first ward for metabolic disorders in the Western Hemisphere.
1933: William Tillett discovers streptokinase, later used for the acute treatment of myocardial infraction.
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 joined 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 was certified as an official heart station for cardiac emergencies.
1982: Bellevue was designated as a micro-surgical reimplantation center for the City of New York.
1983: Bellevue was officially designated as a level one trauma center.
1988: Bellevue was recognized by the City's Emergency Medical Services as a head and spinal cord injury center.
1990: Bellevue established an accredited teaching program in Emergency Medicine.
1996: Bellevue (the public hospital) was the setting that led to the development of the "Taikwok's Triple Drug Combo" medicinal strategy that won the one front against HIV in 1996.^{[citation needed]}