The Johns Hopkins Hospital is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility
of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It
was founded using money from a bequest by philanthropist Johns Hopkins. The Johns Hopkins
Hospital and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine are the founding institutions of modern American
medicine and are the birthplace of numerous traditions including rounds, residents and
housestaff. Many medical specialties were formed at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, including
neurosurgery, by Harvey Cushing; cardiac surgery by Alfred Blalock; pediatrics and child psychiatry,
by Leo Kanner. The Johns Hopkins Hospital is widely regarded
as one of the world's greatest hospitals. It was ranked by U.S. News & World Report
as the best overall hospital in America for 21 consecutive years. In 2012 it was briefly
supplanted by the Massachusetts General Hospital, but regained the top position in 2013, before
moving to third place in 2014.
Beginnings
Johns Hopkins, a Baltimore merchant and banker, left an estate of $7 million when he died
on Christmas Eve 1873 at the age of 78. In his will, he asked that his fortune be used
to found two institutions that would bear his name: "Johns Hopkins University" and "The
Johns Hopkins Hospital." At the time that it was made, Hopkins's gift was the largest
philanthropic bequest in the history of the United States.
Toward the end of his life, Hopkins selected 12 prominent Baltimoreans to be the trustees
for the project and a year before his death, sent a letter telling them that he was giving
"thirteen acres of land, situated in the city of Baltimore, and bounded by Wolfe, Monument,
Broadway and Jefferson streets upon which I desire you to erect a hospital." He wished
for a hospital "which shall, in construction and arrangement, compare favorably with any
other institution of like character in this country or in Europe" and directed his trustees
to "secure for the service of the Hospital, physicians and surgeons of the highest character
and greatest skill." Most importantly, Hopkins told the trustees
to "bear constantly in mind that it is my wish and purpose that the hospital shall ultimately
form a part of the Medical School of that university for which I have made ample provision
in my will." By calling for this integral relationship between patient care, as embodied
in the hospital, and teaching and research, as embodied in the university, Hopkins laid
the groundwork for a revolution in American medicine. Johns Hopkins' vision, of two institutions
in which the practice of medicine would be wedded to medical research and medical education
was nothing short of revolutionary. Initial plans for the hospital were drafted
by surgeon John Shaw Billings, and the architecture designed by John Rudolph Niernsee and completed
by Edward Clarke Cabot of the Boston firm of Cabot and Chandler in a Queen Anne style.
When completed in 1889 at a cost of $2,050,000, the hospital included what was then state-of-the
art concepts in heating and ventilation to check the spread of disease.
The trustees obtained the services of four outstanding physicians, known as the "Big
Four," to serve as the founding staff of the hospital when it opened on May 7, 1889. They
were pathologist William Henry Welch, surgeon William Stewart Halsted, internist William
Osler, and male gynecologist Howard Atwood Kelly.
In 1893, Johns Hopkins University was one of the first medical schools to admit women.
The decision to begin coeducation was a result of a shortage of funds, as the B&O Railroad
stock that was supposed to cover cost was used up in building the hospital in 1889 and
the medical school had not yet been built. Four of the original trustees’ daughters
offered to raise the money needed to open the school, but only if the school agreed
to admit qualified women to the university. After several discussions the trustees agreed
to their terms and accepted the financial help of these four women, with only one of
doctors, William Henry Welch resisting. Eventually even Welch changed his views on coeducation,
"The necessity for coeducation in some form," he wrote later, "becomes more evident the
higher the character of the education. In no form of education is this more evident
than in that of medicine ... we regard coeducation a success; those of us who were not enthusiastic
at the beginning are now sympathetic and friendly." Osler, the first chief of the Department of
Medicine, is credited with originating the idea of a residency, whereby recently graduated
doctors receive advanced training in their specialty while treating patients under supervision;
then as now, residents comprise most of the medical staff of the hospital. He also introduced
the idea of bringing medical students into actual patient care early in their training;
at the time medical school consisted almost entirely of lectures. Osler's contribution
to practical education extends to the creation of "grand rounds", the practice of leading
physicians discussing the most difficult cases in front of assembled medical students, for
the benefit of patients and students. He once said he hoped his tombstone would say only,
"He brought medical students into the wards for bedside teaching."
Halsted, the first chief of the Department of Surgery, established many other medical
and surgical achievements at Johns Hopkins including modern surgical principles of control
of bleeding, accurate anatomical dissection, complete sterility, and the first radical
mastectomy for breast cancer. His other achievements included the introduction of the surgical
glove and advances in thyroid, biliary tree, hernia, intestinal and arterial aneurysm surgeries.
Halsted also established the first formal surgical residency training program in the
United States. Kelly is credited with establishing gynecology
as a true specialty. He created new surgical approaches to women's diseases and invented
numerous medical devices, including a urinary cystoscope. He was one of the first to use
radium to treat cancer. Welch was responsible for training many of
the outstanding physicians of the day, such as Walter Reed. He also founded at Hopkins
the nation's first School of Public Health. In 1912, Diamond Jim Brady donated $220,000
to the hospital, which created the James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute.
Ophthalmologist William Holland Wilmer opened the Wilmer Eye Institute in 1925, its home
was completed four years later. Dr. Wilmer received an M.D. degree from the University
of Virginia in 1885 and worked in New York, Washington D.C., in addition to Baltimore,
where he established the institute. Achievements
Medical achievements at Johns Hopkins include the first male-to-female sex reassignment
surgery in the United States that took place in 1966 at the Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic.
Two of the most far-reaching advances in medicine during the last 25 years were also made at
Hopkins. First, the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of restriction enzymes gave birth to the genetic
engineering industry. Second, the discovery of the brain's natural opiates has triggered
an explosion of interest in neurotransmitter pathways and functions. Other accomplishments
include the development of HeLa, by George Otto Gey, head of tissue culture research
in 1951; the first and arguably most important line of human cells grown in culture; identification
of the three types of polio virus; and the first "blue baby" operation, which was done
by surgeon Alfred Blalock in collaboration with Helen Taussig, a female Hopkins graduate
specializing in pediatric cardiology and surgical technician Vivien Thomas which opened the
way to modern heart surgery. Operations
The hospital occupies approximately 20 of the 60 buildings on the Johns Hopkins Medical
Campus. The complex has over 80 entrances and receives 80,000 visitors weekly. It houses
over 1,000 beds and has a staff of over 1,700 doctors with over 30,000 total employees.
In May 2012 the Johns Hopkins Hospital opened two new towers as part of a major campus redevelopment
effort. The opening of the new $1.1 billion Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children’s Center
tower and the new Sheikh Zayed Tower marked the highpoint of this effort. In addition
to the main hospital, the system operates four other hospitals and several outpatient
care facilities in the Baltimore and Washington metro areas and a children's hospital in St.
Petersburg, Florida. Rankings
The Johns Hopkins Hospital was ranked as the top overall hospital in the United States
for 21 consecutive years by U.S. News & World Report until 2012, when it moved to 2nd place
behind the rise of the Massachusetts General Hospital. In 2013, it was reinstated as the
top hospital in the United States. A Plan for the Future of Johns Hopkins Medicine
Johns Hopkins Medicine developed a five-year strategic plan to lead the change. The plan
guides our business strategies and decisions with a focus on six strategic priorities in
which we’ll invest our time and resources—people, biomedical discovery, patient- and family-centered
care, education, integration and performance. These six priorities are critical areas of
focus for the success and sustainability of the institution. The strategic priorities
and overall structure of the plan were developed during an 18-month process led by a diverse,
multidisciplinary coalition of faculty and staff leaders representing all member organizations
and a host of roles throughout JHM. Dean/ CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine
Paul B. Rothman, M.D. Dean of the Medical Faculty Chief Executive Officer of Johns Hopkins
Medicine Paul B. Rothman is the Frances Watt Baker,
M.D., and Lenox D. Baker Jr., M.D. Dean of the Medical Faculty, vice president for medicine
of The Johns Hopkins University, and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine. He is the 14th dean
of the School of Medicine and the second CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine.
As dean/CEO, Rothman oversees both the Johns Hopkins Health System and the School of Medicine.
A rheumatologist and molecular immunologist, he came to Hopkins in July 2012 after having
served as dean of the Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa and leader of its
clinical practice plan since 2008. Previously, he served as head of internal medicine at
the University of Iowa, beginning in 2004, and prior to that as vice chairman for research
and founding director of the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine at Columbia
University College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he joined the faculty in 1986.
A 1980 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rothman earned his
medical degree from Yale University in 1984. He then trained at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical
Center and accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University prior to joining its
medical school faculty. Rothman's research focused on immune system
molecules known as cytokines. Specifically, he investigated the role these molecules play
in the normal development of blood cells, as well as the abnormal development of these
blood cell that leads to leukemia. He also studied the role of cytokines in immune system
responses to asthma and allergies. His work was consistently funded by the National Institutes
of Health. His honors include a James S. McDonnell Foundation
Career Development Award, a Pfizer Scholars Award, a Pew Scholar Award, a Leukemia Society
of America Scholar Award and the Pharmacia Allergy Research Foundation International
Award in 1997. Dr. Rothman is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation
and is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. He was elected to the Council
of Association of American Physicians, as a Fellow of the American Association for the
Advancement of Sciences and as a member of the American Clinical and Climatological Association.
See also
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Hopkins television series Medical centers in the United States
References
Further reading Roberts, CS. "H.L. Mencken and the four doctors:
Osler, Halsted, Welch and Kelly". Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings 23: 377–88. PMC 2943453.
PMID 20944761. External links
The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System website
Johns Hopkins Medicine website Baltimore, Maryland, a National Park Service
Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary Johns Hopkins Hospital on Google Street View
C-SPAN Q&A interview with Ronald Peterson about Johns Hopkins Hospital, January 9, 2005