July 7, 1955: Birth of the "Atom-Era Hospital" -- UCLA Accepts First Patients

When UCLA Medical Center opened its doors and admitted its first patients on July 7, 1955, the Los Angeles Times heralded the opening of the "first atom-era hospital" boasting the first atomic reactor designed for medical purposes. The medical center is now launching a series of events to commemorate its golden anniversary and celebrate 50 years of health care leadership.

Though it is one of the youngest academic medical centers in the country, U.S. News & World Report has ranked UCLA Medical Center as the best hospital in the Western United States for 15 consecutive years. It is the only Southern California hospital to earn a spot on the magazine's honor roll since the rankings were first published 15 years ago. (See http://www.fiftyyears.healthcare.ucla.edu for more details.)

"The consistently high rankings of the UCLA Medical Center are a reflection of the expertise and dedication of our physicians, nurses, staff and volunteers," said Dr. Gerald S. Levey, vice chancellor of UCLA Medical Sciences and dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine.

"Since its birth in 1955, UCLA Medical Center has quickly evolved into a world-class facility for outstanding patient care, research and teaching," said Dr. David L. Callender, associate vice chancellor, UCLA Hospital System, and director of UCLA Medical Center. "Our anticipated 2007 opening of the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center will ensure that UCLA continues to meet the community's needs for the next half a century."

Making Its Mark on Medicine

In the past 50 years, UCLA Medical Center has transformed itself from a single 320-bed hospital into a sophisticated health care system anchored by a 668-bed medical center recognized worldwide for its excellence in adult and pediatric tertiary care, teaching and research.

Housing both a full-service hospital for adults and Mattel Children's Hospital, UCLA Medical Center has evolved into one of the leading centers for transplantation surgery, geriatrics, heart care, cancer treatment and surgery.

In the past five decades, UCLA Medical Center has admitted more than 1.3 million patients, delivered nearly 100,000 babies and recorded more than 2 million visits to its Emergency Department. It also has been at the forefront of many significant medical advances through research.

"From the very beginnings of UCLA's academic medical center, our physicians and scientists committed themselves to translating the advances in medical science to the treatment of their patients," Levey said. "They correctly believed that the best patient care and the future of health care in the United States were dependent on dramatic advances in biomedical research. This philosophy is the reason the UCLA Medical Center witnessed many 'firsts' in medical care."

The following are some of the medical advances that took place at UCLA Medical Center in the past 50 years:

• 1956: UCLA surgeons perform the first open-heart surgery in the Western United States.
  
  
• 1958: UCLA researchers develop the first techniques for fetal monitoring.
  
  
• 1960: UCLA surgeons perform the first mother-to-daughter kidney transplant in the Western United States.
  
  
• 1968: The Child Life/Child Development Program is established in recognition of the unique needs of pediatric patients, especially the critically and chronically ill. The program is one of the first in the country and continues to be a model for other medical centers.
  
  
• 1975: UCLA develops a durable artificial hip, called the "chamfer cylinder design surface."
  
  
• 1976: UCLA surgeons perform the first total shoulder replacement.
  
  
• 1980s: UCLA Medical Center is the first to provide clinical PET scan services.
  
  
• 1981: UCLA physicians reported the nation's â€â€? and the world's â€â€? first cases of AIDS.
  
  
• 1985: UCLA doctors non-surgically remove kidney stones with a lithotripter for the first time on the West Coast.
  
  
• 1992: Dr. Hillel Laks pioneers the country's first Alternative Heart Transplant Program, and is the first U.S. cardiac surgeon to perform bypass surgery on a donor heart prior to transplantation.
  
  
• 1992: UCLA surgeons and transplant specialists led by Dr. Ronald Busuttil perform the first combined small bowel/liver transplant in the Western United States. Until January 1992, this type of transplant had been performed successfully only 14 times worldwide. The 20-year-old patient recovers and resumes a normal life.
  
  
• 2002: UCLA cardiothoracic surgeons use a new technique to harvest an artery from a patient's wrist for heart bypass surgery. The procedure, performed for the first time on the West Coast, is a called an endoscopic radial artery harvesting technique.
  
  
• 2002: Dr. Ronald W. Busuttil performs the nation's first combined unrelated living liver and "domino" transplant in response to the national shortage of livers for transplant. Two patients waiting for a liver transplant are saved by this procedure, in which part of an unrelated donor's liver is transplanted into one patient whose genetically deficient liver was removed from his body and transplanted into the second patient, a woman who suffered from a cancerous liver. The donated liver, while not quite perfect, would dramatically extend her life expectancy.
  
  
• 2002: A team of more than 50 surgeons, nurses and technicians led by Dr. Jorge Lazareff and Dr. Henry Kawamoto successfully separated 2-year-old craniopagus twin girls from Guatemala in a 22-hour surgery. Fused at the tops of their heads, craniopagus twins are among the rarest of conjoined twins, accounting for just 2 percent of cases worldwide.
  
  
• 2004: The Federal Drug Administration clears the first device to treat acute ischemic stroke. Developed and patented by UCLA physicians, the corkscrew like device, called the Mechanical Embolus Removal in Cerebral Ischemia Retriever, allows doctors to mechanically remove stroke-causing clots from the patient's brain.
  
  
• 2005: UCLA Medical Center becomes the world's first hospital to introduce remote presence robots in its neurosurgery intensive care unit. The RP-6 robot allows doctors to "virtually" consult with patients, family members and health care staff at a moment's notice, even if miles away from the hospital.

"UCLA Medical Center is a true jewel in the Los Angeles and Southern California community," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. "We are privileged to have a health care innovator in our city consistently known worldwide for its cutting-edge technological contributions, outstanding medical research and compassionate patient care. And we can be very proud of the fact that UCLA Medical Center has trained nearly 15,000 doctors who now serve the local, national and international community."

"The partnership between the Medical Center and the David Geffen School of Medicine has resulted in extraordinary progress in medicine," Levey said. "UCLA researchers and clinicians have broken ground in every field of medicine. With accomplishments spanning every discipline, UCLA Medical Center truly has reason to celebrate."

Background: Examples of How Medicine Has Changed in 50 Years

A Revolutionary Era in Medicine

UCLA Medical Center faculty, medical students, patients and staff have witnessed revolutionary changes in medicine over the past five decades:

• In 1955, no CTs, MRIs or ultrasound technology existed. Diagnostic tools were largely limited to stethoscopes and crude X-ray machines.
  
  
• In 1955, children were kept indoors in the summer for fear of catching polio. Now vaccines for polio and other infectious diseases have nearly eradicated those conditions.
  
  
• In 1955, if you had abdominal pain, you often were required to undergo an exploratory abdominal operation for diagnosis. Today, MRI, CT, ultrasound and PET scans have virtually eliminated the need for diagnostic surgeries.
  
  
• In 1955, if you needed a major operation, such as kidney or colon removal, you would often spend several weeks in the hospital on bed rest. Today, many of those same operations use minimally invasive procedures requiring less than a day in the hospital. Major operations, such as treating brain aneurysms, are now performed by radiology-guided catheters, with no incision necessary.
  
  
• In 1955, 100 percent of patients with failure of a major organ, such as a heart, lung, liver or kidney, typically died within a very short period. Today, surgeons perform transplants that allow most patients to resume a normal, productive life.
  
  
• In 1955, if you had testicular cancer, a common cancer in young men, the mortality was 100 percent if not diagnosed at the earliest stage. Today, the survival rate is almost 100 percent due to the development of chemotherapy to treat the condition.