Bellevue Hospital

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Bellevue traces its origins to the city's first permanent almshouse, a two-story brick building completed in 1736 on the city common, now City Hall Park.{{cite book|last1=Burrows|first1=Edwin G.|last2=Wallace|first2=Mike|title=Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xF4NDALYWSAC|year=1998|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-974120-5|page=156}}{{Cite web |last=McIntire |first=Tracey |date=2023-02-13 |title=Bellevue--From Poorhouse to Hospital |url=https://www.civilwarmed.org/bellevue-hospital/ |access-date=2023-07-19 |website=National Museum of Civil War Medicine}}

In 1798, the city purchased Belle Vue farm, a property near the East River several miles north of the settled city, which had been used to quarantine the sick during a series of yellow fever outbreaks. The hospital was formally named Bellevue Hospital in 1824.{{cite book|last1=Frusciano|first1=Thomas J.|last2=Pettit|first2=Marilyn H.|title=New York University and the City: An Illustrated History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YlOUBad4ht8C|year=1997|publisher=Rutgers University Press|isbn=978-0-8135-2347-7|page=88}}{{cite book|last=Carlisle|first=Robert J.|title=An Account of Bellevue Hospital: With a Catalogue of the Medical and Surgical Staff from 1736 to 1894|url=https://archive.org/details/anaccountbellev00carlgoog|year=1893|publisher=Society of the Alumni of Bellevue Hospital|pages=[https://archive.org/details/anaccountbellev00carlgoog/page/n135 1]–17}}

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By 1787, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons had assigned faculty and medical students to Bellevue. Columbia faculty and students would remain at Bellevue for the next 181 years, until the restructuring of the academic affiliations of Bellevue Hospital in 1968. New York University faculty began to conduct clinical instruction at the hospital in 1819. In 1849, an amphitheater for clinical teaching and surgery opened. In 1861, the Bellevue Hospital Medical College, the first medical college in New York with connections to a hospital, was founded. By 1873, the nation's first nursing school based on Florence Nightingale's principles opened at Bellevue, followed by the nation's first children's clinic in 1874 and the nation's first emergency pavilion in 1876; a pavilion for the insane, an approach considered revolutionary at the time, was erected within hospital grounds in 1879. For that reason, the name Bellevue is sometimes used as a metonym for psychiatric hospitals. Mark Harris in New York called it "the Chelsea Hotel of the mad".

Bellevue initiated a residency training program in 1883 that is still the model for surgical training worldwide. The Carnegie Laboratory, the nation's first pathology and bacteriology laboratory, was founded there a year later, followed by the nation's first men's nursing school in 1888. By 1892, Bellevue established a dedicated unit for alcoholics.{{citation needed|date=May 2020}}

In 1902, the administrative Bellevue and Allied Hospitals organization were formed by the city, under president John W. Brannan. B&AH also included Gouverneur Hospital, Harlem Hospital, and Fordham Hospital.Annual Report, Volume 1, by New York (State). Dept. of Social Welfare, 1908, page 268 B&AH opened doors to female and black physicians.Opdycke, Sandra. No One Was Turned Away: The Role of Public Hospitals in New York City since 1900, p. 67 (Oxford University Press, 1999), Focused on the history of Bellevue Hospital [https://www.questia.com/read/123669446/no-one-was-turned-away-the-role-of-public-hospitals online] In the midst of a tuberculosis epidemic a year later, the Bellevue Chest Service was founded.{{Citation needed|date=July 2023}}

Bellevue opened the nation's first ambulatory cardiac clinic in 1911, followed by the Western Hemisphere's first ward for metabolic disorders in 1917. New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner began on the second floor in 1918. German spy and saboteur Fritz Joubert Duquesne escaped the hospital prison ward in 1919 after having feigned paralysis for nearly two years.{{cite news |title='Paralytic' Flees from Prison Ward; Captain Fritz Duquesne, Who Feigned Helplessness, Escapes from Bellevue |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1919/05/28/archives/paralytic-flees-from-prison-ward-captain-fritz-duquesne-who-feigned.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=May 28, 1919 |page=16 |access-date=July 16, 2010}}

PS 106, the first public school for the emotionally disturbed children located in a public hospital, opened at Bellevue in 1935. In 1939, David Margolis began work on nine Work Projects Administration murals in entrance rotunda titled Materials of Relaxation, which were completed in 1941. Bellevue became the site of the world's first hospital catastrophe unit the same year; the world's first cardiopulmonary laboratory was established at Bellevue by Andre Cournand and Dickinson Richards a year later, and the nation's first heart failure clinic opened, staffed by Eugene Braunwald, in 1952. In 1960. New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner moved out of the second floor and into its new building at 520 First Avenue, but still maintained close relations with Bellevue. In 1962, Bellevue established the first intensive care unit in a municipal hospital, and in 1964, Bellevue was designated as the stand-by hospital for treatment of visiting presidents, foreign dignitaries, injured members of the city's uniformed services, and United Nations diplomats. Bellevue joined the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation as one of 11 acute care hospitals in 1970.{{Citation needed|date=July 2023}}

In 1981, Bellevue was certified as an official heart station for cardiac emergencies; a year later it was designated as a micro-surgical reimplantation center for the City of New York, by 1983 as a level one trauma center, and by 1988 as a head and spinal cord injury center. In 1990, it established an accredited residency training program in Emergency Medicine. The building that formerly served as the hospital's psychiatric facility started to be used as a homeless intake center and a men's homeless shelter in 1998. The publication of the Bellevue Literary Review, the first literary magazine to arise from a medical center, commenced in 2001; Bellevue Literary Press was founded six years later as a sister organization of the Bellevue Literary Review.{{Citation needed|date=July 2023}}

In April 2010, plans to redevelop the former psychiatric hospital building as a hotel and conference center connected to NYU Langone Medical Center fell through.{{cite news |title=Bellevue Redevelopment Officially Dead |first=Dana |last=Rubinstein |url=http://www.observer.com/2010/real-estate/bellevue-redevelopment-officially-dead |newspaper=The New York Observer |date=April 15, 2010 |access-date=July 16, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100426141918/http://www.observer.com/2010/real-estate/bellevue-redevelopment-officially-dead |archive-date=April 26, 2010 }} The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 required evacuation of all patients due to power failure and flooding in the basement generators.{{cite web |url=https://abcnews.go.com/Health/york-citys-bellevue-hospital-forced-evacuate-patients-sandy/story?id=17607625|first=Ashley|last=Jennings| title=New York City's Bellevue Hospital Forced to Evacuate Patients After Sandy|work=ABC News|date=October 31, 2012|access-date=October 31, 2012}}{{Cite news|last1=Bernstein|first1=Nina|last2=Hartocollis|first2=Anemona|date=October 31, 2012|title=Bellevue Hospital Evacuates Patients After Backup Power Fails|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/nyregion/bellevue-hospital-evacuates-patients-after-backup-power-fails.html|access-date=May 28, 2020|issn=0362-4331}} Bellevue was renamed NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue in November 2015 as a reflection of its parent organization's rebranding.{{cite news |last=Gamble |first=Molly |newspaper=Becker's Hospital Review |publisher=Becker's Healthcare |url=http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-management-administration/a-new-name-for-nyc-health-and-hospitals-corp-5-things-to-know.html |title=A new name for NYC Health and Hospitals Corp.: 5 things to know |date=November 10, 2015 |access-date=December 15, 2015}}

In 2014 Bellevue was ranked 40th overall best hospital in the New York metro area and 29th in New York City by U.S. News & World Report.{{cite web |title=Best Hospitals |url=http://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/area/ny/bellevue-hospital-center-6212630 |access-date=February 26, 2015 |website=U.S. News & World Report}}

{{More citations needed|date=July 2023}}

Multiple firsts were performed at Bellevue in its early years. In 1799, it opened the first maternity ward in the United States. By 1808, the world's first ligation of the femoral artery for an aneurysm was performed there, followed by the first ligation of the innominate artery ten years later.{{Citation needed|date=July 2023}}

Bellevue physicians promoted the "Bone Bill" in 1854, which legalized dissection of cadavers for anatomical studies; two years later they started to also popularize the use of the hypodermic syringe. In 1862, the Austin Flint murmur was named for Austin Flint, prominent Bellevue Hospital cardiologist.{{Citation needed|date=July 2023}}

By 1867, Bellevue physicians were instrumental in developing New York City's sanitary code, the first in the world. 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") was established at Bellevue that year. In 1868, Bellevue physician Stephen Smith became first commissioner of public health in New York City; he initiated a national campaign for health vaccinations. A year later, Bellevue established the second hospital-based, emergency ambulance service in the United States.{{cite book |last=Bell |first=Ryan Corbett |title=The Ambulance: A History |year=2009 |publisher=McFarland & Co. |location=Jefferson, N.C. |isbn=978-0-7864-3811-2}}

In 1889, Bellevue physicians were the first to report that tuberculosis is a preventable disease; five years later was the successful operation of the abdomen for a pistol shot wound. William Tillett discovered streptokinase, later used for the acute treatment of myocardial infarction, at Bellevue in 1933. Nina Starr Braunwald performed the first mitral valve replacement in 1960 at the hospital. In 1967, Bellevue physicians performed the first cadaver kidney transplant. In 1971, the first active immunization for hepatitis B was developed by Bellevue physicians. Bellevue played a key role in the development of the "Triple Drug Cocktail" or HAART, a breakthrough in the treatment of AIDS, in 1996.{{Cite web |title=Charting the History of American Medicine Through Bellevue |url=https://www.aamc.org/news/charting-history-american-medicine-through-bellevue |access-date=2024-04-04 |website=AAMC |language=en}}

In October 2014, Bellevue took in an Ebola patient, Craig Spencer, an individual who worked with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) in Guinea a month prior during the 2014 Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa.{{Cite news |last=Santora |first=Marc |date=23 October 2014 |title=Doctor in New York City Is Sick With Ebola |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/nyregion/craig-spencer-is-tested-for-ebola-virus-at-bellevue-hospital-in-new-york-city.html |access-date=4 April 2024 |work=The New York Times}}{{Cite news |last=Bever |first=Lindsey |date=24 October 2024 |title=New York's first Ebola patient will put Bellevue to the test |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/10/24/new-yorks-first-ebola-patient-will-put-bellevue-to-the-test/ |access-date=4 April 2024 |newspaper=The Washington Post}}

David Wechsler, Ph.D. who worked at Bellevue from 1932 to 1967, including as Chief Psychologist, developed the well-known intelligence tests, such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), to get to know his patients at the hospital. This battery differed greatly from the Binet scale which, in Wechsler's day, was generally considered the supreme authority with regard to intelligence testing. As the 1960 form of Lewis Terman's Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales was less carefully developed than previous versions, Form I of the WAIS surpassed the Stanford–Binet tests in popularity by the 1960s.{{Cite book |title=Assessing Adolescent and Adult Intelligence |last1=Kaufman |first1=Alan S. |last2=Lichtenberger |first2=Elizabeth |author-link1=Alan S. Kaufman |edition=3rd |year=2006 |publisher=Wiley |location=Hoboken (NJ) |isbn=978-0-471-73553-3|page=7 }}

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File:Bellevue cube E27 jeh.JPG at the East River]]

One of the largest hospitals in the United States by number of beds,{{Cite web|date=December 19, 2011|url=https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/lists/50-largest-hospitals-in-america.html|title=50 Largest Hospitals in America|website=Becker's Hospital Review|access-date=March 17, 2020}} it handles nearly 460,000 non-ER outpatient clinic visits, nearly 106,000 emergency visits and some 30,000 inpatients each year.{{cite web |url=https://www.nychealthandhospitals.org/bellevue/facts/ |title=Bellevue Hospital Facts |access-date=May 31, 2020}} More than 80 percent of Bellevue's patients come from the city's medically underserved populations. Bellevue is a safety net hospital, in that it will provide healthcare for individuals regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay.

The hospital occupies a 25-story patient care facility with an ICU, digital radiology communication and an outpatient facility. The hospital has an attending physician staff of 1,200 and an in-house staff of about 5,500.{{cite web |url=http://www.nychealthandhospitals.org/bellevue/history/ |title=History |publisher=City of New York |access-date=April 15, 2017}}

Bellevue features separate pediatric (0-25) and adult (25+) emergency departments.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nychealthandhospitals.org/bellevue/health-care-services/emergencytrauma/|title=Emergency/Trauma|language=en|access-date=April 6, 2020}}

Bellevue has entered popular consciousness through its status as a major hospital in the largest city in the United States. The hospital notably treated the author Norman Mailer, who was taken to Bellevue after he stabbed his wife; and Mark David Chapman, who shuttled between Bellevue and the jail complex on Rikers Island after he shot and killed musician John Lennon. The poet Allen Ginsberg, also a former patient, mentioned the hospital by name in his famous poem "Howl" (1955).{{Cite news|last=Smith|first=Nathan|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/book-review-bellevue-david-oshinsky/|title=Book Review: Bellevue by David Oshinsky|work=The Nation|date=December 3, 2016|access-date=March 19, 2020}} In the 1945 film The Lost Weekend, Ray Milland is seen escaping from Bellevue's chaotic alcoholic ward.

Bellevue has been the subject of books, including Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital (2016), by historian David Oshinsky, Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital (2012), by Eric Manheimer, a former Bellevue medical director,{{Cite web|url=https://nypost.com/2018/10/27/new-amsterdam-filming-pumps-money-into-citys-hospitals/|title=New Amsterdam filming pumps money into city's hospitals|last=Klein|first=Melissa|date=October 28, 2018|work=New York Post|access-date=March 19, 2020}} and Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue (2002), by Danielle Ofri, a long-time physician at Bellevue.{{Cite web|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-8070-7252-3|title=Review: Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue|date=February 24, 2003|work=Publishers Weekly|access-date=January 25, 2021}}

The 2018 NBC television series New Amsterdam takes place at a fictionalized version of Bellevue, renamed "New Amsterdam" in the show. Based on Manheimer's book, the series has filmed scenes at Bellevue and other New York City public hospitals.

• List of the oldest hospitals in the United States

{{reflist|30em}}

• {{cite book |last=Holland |first=Julie |title=Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych ER |year=2009 |publisher=Bantam Books |location=New York |isbn=978-0-553-80766-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/weekendsatbellev00holl|ref=none}}
• {{cite book |last=Nolen |first=William A. |title=The Making of a Surgeon |year=1990 |publisher=Mid-List Press |location=Denver |isbn=0-922811-46-6|ref=none}}
• {{cite book |last=Ofri |first=Danielle |title=Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue |year=2009 |publisher=Beacon Press |location=Boston |isbn=978-0-8070-7252-3 |author-link=Danielle Ofri|ref=none}}
• {{cite book |last=Oshinsky|first=David|author-link=David Oshinsky|title=Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital|year=2016|publisher=Anchor Books|location=New York|isbn=978-0-307-38671-7|ref=none}}

{{Commons category|Bellevue Hospital Center}}

• {{official website|http://www.nychealthandhospitals.org/bellevue}}
• [https://med.nyu.edu/psych/affiliates/bellevue-hospital-center NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue] at NYU Medical Center
• [http://archives.med.nyu.edu/ NYU School of Medicine / Library and Archives] with Bellevue related collections
• [http://www.med.nyu.edu/psych/patient-care/inpatient-services/bellevue-hospital/psychiatry-services NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue Psychiatry Inpatient Services]
• {{cite web |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/02/arts/a-literary-review-at-bellevue-believe-it.html |work= The New York Times |series= Arts |title= A Literary Review at Bellevue? Believe it |first= Dinitia |last= Smith |date= October 2, 2002|ref=none}}

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