Barnes-Jewish Hospital (St. Louis). Robert Barnes came to St. Louis in 1830 without a dollar to his name. After working his way up as a bank president, he died in 1892 and bequeathed $850,000 to the city to build a "modern general hospital for sick and injured persons, without distinction of creed" — later becoming Barnes Hospital. Soon thereafter, the Jewish community in St. Louis similarly established Jewish Hospital to help care for the wave of new immigrants coming into the city.
Barnes-Jewish Hospital, the largest hospital in Missouri, was born from the merger of Barnes Hospital and Jewish Hospital in 1996. As the flagship of BJC HealthCare, Barnes-Jewish has 1,762 attending physicians and landed as the 15th top hospital on U.S. News & World Report's Honor Roll of America's Best Hospitals in 2013, a list it made for the 21st consecutive year. Also in 2013, 1,315-bed Barnes-Jewish was redesignated as a Magnet hospital for excellence in nursing.
While great on its own, Barnes-Jewish Hospital has several high-level partners that help it boost patient care. For instance, it is the primary teaching hospital of Washington University School of Medicine, one of the top three medical schools in the nation. The two organizations partner for the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center, the only cancer center in Missouri to be designated as a Comprehensive Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute.
Last summer, Barnes-Jewish Hospital celebrated the 25th year of its pioneering lung transplant program, one of the first dedicated programs in the country. To learn more about this milestone and the program, read editor Lindsey Dunn's spotlight profile of the hospital — Barnes-Jewish Hospital: A Lung Transplant Pioneer for 25 Years.
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