Bellevue Hospital

Bellevue Hospital Center

View from outpatient's room IA. Aug 4, 1950
Geography
Location	462 First Avenue New York, New York 10016, United States
Organization
Care system	Medicaid, Medicare, Public
Hospital type	Teaching
Affiliated university	New York University
Services
Emergency department	Level I trauma center
Beds	1242 general, 339 psychiatric
History
Founded	March 31,1736
Links
Website	home page
Lists	Hospitals in the United States

Modern building

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 has seen many literary figures come through its doors, including poets Sylvia Plath and Gregory Corso, and was portrayed in a number of motion pictures, including The Lost Weekend and The Sleeping City.
• 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.^{[citation needed]}

References

External links

• Bellevue Hospital page at NYU Medical Center's site
• Bellevue Hospital Center Web page
• NYU School of Medicine / Library and Archives with Bellevue related collections
• 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.

Coordinates: 40°44′21″N 73°58′31″W / 40.7393°N 73.9753°W / 40.7393; -73.9753