UCSF Medical Center (San Francisco). In 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and the rest of the northern California coast, resulting in devastating fires. The University of California decided to build a teaching hospital on the Parnassus campus in the wake of those disasters, founding what is today UCSF Medical Center. Arnold D'Ancona, MD, directed the hospital as its first administrator and oversaw the grand opening in 1907.
UCSF Medical Center includes two campuses: the 15-story, 600-bed main hospital at Parnassus that includes the UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital and the 90-bed hospital at Mount Zion, which is the hub for specialized clinics and surgical services. A third campus, Mission Bay, will open in 2015 with 289 beds for pediatric care, women's services and cancer care.
For its 2013-14 Best Hospitals list, U.S. News & World Report ranked UCSF Medical Center seventh overall in the country and first in the San Francisco metro area. U.S. News listed the medical center as a top 15 institution for 11 specialties, including a spot as fifth-best overall for neurology/neurosurgery and endocrinology. UCSF Medical Center is also one of the greenest healthcare organizations in the country, as it publishes an annual sustainability report, is an active member and signatory in several healthcare sustainability initiatives, and groups and composts 90 percent of food waste.
UCSF researchers and physicians are among the most highly acclaimed and renowned in the country. They include Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009 for her pioneering work with chromosomes, and Stanley Prusiner, MD, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1997 for his discovery of prions, which are infectious proteins that cause neurodegenerative diseases.
Photo Credit: UCSF Medical Center
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