Massachusetts General Hospital (
Mass General or
MGH) is a
teaching hospitalA teaching hospital is a hospital that provides clinical education and training to future and current doctors, nurses, and other health professionals, in addition to delivering medical care to patients...
and
biomedical researchBiomedical research , in general simply known as medical research, is the basic research, applied research, or translational research conducted to aid and support the body of knowledge in the field of medicine...
facility in the West End neighborhood of
BostonBoston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
,
MassachusettsThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
. With the opening of the Lunder Building in 2011, it is the largest hospital in
New EnglandNew England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
with 1,057 beds.
It has most recently been ranked as the second best hospital in the United States, behind
Johns Hopkins HospitalThe Johns Hopkins Hospital is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland . It was founded using money from a bequest by philanthropist Johns Hopkins...
, by
U.S. News & World ReportU.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
.
MGH was the original teaching affiliate of
Harvard Medical SchoolHarvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....
and is currently one of over a dozen hospitals affiliated with HMS. MGH is owned by
Partners HealthCarePartners HealthCare is a non-profit organization that owns several hospitals in Massachusetts, primarily in the Boston area. Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital founded the organization in 1994...
, which it founded with
Brigham and Women's HospitalBrigham and Women's Hospital is the largest hospital of the Longwood Medical and Academic Area in Boston, Massachusetts. It is directly adjacent to Harvard Medical School of which it is the second largest teaching affiliate with 793 beds...
in 1994. MGH is also a member of the consortium which operates
Boston MedFlightBoston MedFlight is a non-profit organization that provides emergency scene response and emergent interfacility transfer in Eastern Massachusetts...
.
MGH is affiliated with the
Dana-Farber Cancer InstituteDana–Farber Cancer Institute is part of a Comprehensive Cancer Center designated by the National Cancer Institute. It is a major affiliate of Harvard Medical School and is located in the Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts.-Overview:...
through Dana-Farber/Partners Cancer Care and the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center.
History
Founded in 1811, the original hospital was designed by the famous American architect
Charles BulfinchCharles Bulfinch was an early American architect, and has been regarded by many as the first native-born American to practice architecture as a profession....
. It is the third-oldest general hospital in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. John Warren, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at Harvard Medical School, spearheaded the move of the medical school to Boston. Warren's son,
John Collins WarrenJohn Collins Warren , of Boston, was one of the most renowned American surgeons of the 19th century. In 1846 he gave permission to William T.G. Morton to provide ether anesthesia while Warren performed a minor surgical procedure...
, along with
James JacksonJames Jackson was a United States physician. He was a proponent of Massachusetts General Hospital and became its first physician.-Biography:...
, led the efforts to start the Massachusetts General Hospital. Because all those who had sufficient money were cared for at home, Massachusetts General Hospital, like most hospitals that were founded in the 19th century, was intended to care for the poor. During the mid-to-late 19th century, Harvard Medical School was located adjacent to Massachusetts General Hospital.
The first American hospital social workers were based in the hospital.
The hospital's work with developing specialized computer software systems for medical use in the 1960s led to the development of the
MUMPSMUMPS , or alternatively M, is a programming language created in the late 1960s, originally for use in the healthcare industry. It was designed for the production of multi-user database-driven applications...
programming language, which stands for "
Massachusetts General Hospital
Utility
Multi-
Programming
System," an important programming language and data-base system heavily used in medical applications such as patient records and billing. A major patient database system called File Manager, which was developed by the
Veterans AdministrationThe United States Department of Veterans Affairs is a government-run military veteran benefit system with Cabinet-level status. It is the United States government’s second largest department, after the United States Department of Defense...
(now the Department of Veterans' Affairs), was created using this language.
Early use of anesthesia
It was in the
Ether DomeThe Ether Dome is an amphitheater in the Bulfinch Building at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. It served as the hospital's operating room from its opening in 1821 until 1867. It was the site of the first use of inhaled ether as a surgical anesthetic on 16 October 1846. William Thomas...
of MGH in October 1846, that a local dentist, William Thomas Green Morton, was invited to perform a public demonstration of the administration of inhaled ether to produce insensibility to pain during surgery. Several years prior, Dr.
Crawford LongCrawford Williamson Long was an American surgeon and pharmacist best known for his first use of inhaled diethyl ether as an anesthetic...
of
Danielsville, GeorgiaDanielsville is a city in Madison County, Georgia, United States. The population was 457 at the 2000 census. The city is the county seat of Madison County...
had given ether for surgery, but his work was unknown outside Georgia until he published his experience in 1849. On 16 October 1846, after administration of ether by Morton, MGH Chief of Surgery, John Collins Warren, painlessly removed a tumor from the neck of a local printer,
Edward Gilbert AbbottEdward Gilbert Abbott was the patient upon whom William TG Morton first publicly demonstrated the use of ether as a surgical anesthetic. The operation was done in an amphitheater at the Massachusetts General Hospital now known as the Ether Dome on 16 October 1846. After Morton administered the...
. Upon completion of the procedure, which was without screaming or restraint, the usually skeptical Warren reportedly quipped, "Gentlemen, this is no humbug." News of this "anesthesia" invention rapidly traveled within months around the world.
A reenactment of the Ether Dome event was painted in 2000 by artists Warren and Lucia Prosperi. They used the then-MGH staff to pose as their counterparts from 1846. The Ether Dome still exists and is open to the public.
An anesthesia department was established at the MGH in 1936 under the leadership of Henry Knowles Beecher.
Facilities and current operations
The main MGH campus is located at 55 Fruit Street in Boston, Massachusetts. It has expanded into an area formerly known as the
West EndThe West End is a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, bounded generally by Cambridge Street to the south, the Charles River to the west and northwest, North Washington Street on the north and northeast, and New Sudbury Street on the east. Beacon Hill is to the south, and the North End is to the...
, adjacent to the
Charles RiverThe Charles River is an long river that flows in an overall northeasterly direction in eastern Massachusetts, USA. From its source in Hopkinton, the river travels through 22 cities and towns until reaching the Atlantic Ocean at Boston...
and
Beacon HillBeacon Hill is a historic neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, that along with the neighboring Back Bay is home to about 26,000 people. It is a neighborhood of Federal-style rowhouses and is known for its narrow, gas-lit streets and brick sidewalks...
. The hospital handles over one million outpatients each year at its main campus, as well as its seven satellite facilities in Boston at Back Bay, Charlestown, Chelsea, Everett, Revere, Waltham and Danvers. With more than 20,000 employees, the hospital is the largest non-governmental employer in Boston.
The hospital has 907 beds and admits over 45,000 patients each year. The surgical staff performs over 34,000 operations yearly. The
obstetrics serviceThe Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Massachusetts General Hospital is an arm of Massachusetts General Hospital. It was formerly an independent entity, Vincent Memorial Hospital, before being absorbed into Massachusetts General Hospital...
handles over 3,500 births each year. The Massachusetts General Hospital Trauma Center is the oldest and largest American College of Surgeons-verified Level One Trauma Center in New England, evaluating and treating over 2600 trauma patients per year. Architect
Hisham N. AshkouriHisham N. Ashkouri is a Boston and New York-based architect.Dr. Ashkouri graduated first in class in 1970 with a Bachelor of Architecture Degree from the University of Baghdad and continued for his Masters of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania under the late Louis I. Kahn in 1973...
, working in conjunction with Hoskins Scott Taylor and Partners, provided the space designs and schematics for the pediatrics, neonatal intensive care, and in-patient related floors, as well as the third floor surgical suites and support facilities. In the fall of 2004, the Yawkey Center for Outpatient Care (named for
Jean R. Yawkey Jean Remington Yawkey was the wife of Tom Yawkey and owner of the Boston Red Sox from 1976 to her death in 1992....
) opened. This 440000 square feet (40,877.3 m²) ten-floor facility is the largest and most comprehensive outpatient building in
New EnglandNew England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
.
Since 1994, MGH has been awarded the most research funding for an independent hospital by the National Institutes of Health, receiving over $285 million dollars alone in 2004. MGH is also home to the world-renowned
Mallinckrodt General Clinical Research CenterThe Mallinckrodt MGH General Clinical Research Center is a research center at Massachusetts General Hospital. It is located in Boston, Massachusetts, with satellites in Cambridge, MA and Charlestown, MA. It is supported by a GCRC grant through the National Institutes of Health.-History:The MGH...
.
The closest MBTA stop to the main campus is
Charles/MGHCharles/MGH Station also known as Charles or Charles Street, is located at the intersection of Cambridge Street and Charles Street, in Boston, Massachusetts. The rapid transit station is on the MBTA Red Line and is elevated, being located at the Boston side of the Longfellow Bridge, which carries...
on the Red Line. On March 27, 2007, the new
Charles/MGHCharles/MGH Station also known as Charles or Charles Street, is located at the intersection of Cambridge Street and Charles Street, in Boston, Massachusetts. The rapid transit station is on the MBTA Red Line and is elevated, being located at the Boston side of the Longfellow Bridge, which carries...
station was opened with new renovations, including handicap accessible elevators. There are five main food service areas for the
general publicGeneral Public were a band formed by The Beat vocalists, Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger, and which included former members of Dexy's Midnight Runners, The Specials and The Clash...
on the MGH campus. They include the
Eat Street Cafe in the lower level of the Ellison Building, the
Blossom Street Cafe in the Cox lobby,
Coffee Central in the White lobby,
Tea Leaves and Coffee Beans in the Wang Ambulatory Care Center, and
Coffee South in the Yawkey outpatient center.
Affiliated institutions
Massachusetts General Hospital is affiliated with
Harvard Medical SchoolHarvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....
and is its original teaching hospital. Together they form an academic health science center. MGH reports it conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the United States, with an annual research budget of over $500 million. Research centers cover many areas including AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer, human genetics, medical imaging, neurodegenerative disorders, regenerative medicine, transplantation biology and photomedicine. In February 2009, the
Phillip T. and Susan M. Ragon InstitutePhillip T. and Susan M. Ragon Institute is a medical institute to be created at the Massachusetts General Hospital by the funding from founder and CEO of InterSystems Phillip Ragon and his wife Susan Ragon to find vaccine for diseases of the immune system, particularly AIDS...
of immunology was founded to bolster research into creating vaccines and other therapies for acquired immune system conditions, chiefly AIDS. It was made possible by a $100 million gift over ten years, and represents the largest single donation made to MGH.
Though it has its own chief of psychiatry and top ranking department, MGH is closely affiliated with nearby
McLean HospitalMcLean Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts.It is noted for its clinical staff expertise and ground-breaking neuroscience research...
, a psychiatric hospital also affiliated with Harvard Medical School.
Nobel Laureates
There have been ten Nobel Laureates who have either worked or trained at MGH.
- 1934 George R. Minot, MD
George Richards Minot was an American medical researcher who shared the 1934 Nobel Prize with George Hoyt Whipple and William P. Murphy for their pioneering work on pernicious anemia.-Life:...
- 1947 Carl F. Cori, PhD
Carl Ferdinand Cori was a Czech biochemist and pharmacologist born in Prague who, together with his wife Gerty Cori and Argentine physiologist Bernardo Houssay, received a Nobel Prize in 1947 for their discovery of how glycogen – a derivative of glucose – is broken down and...
- 1953 Fritz A. Lipmann, MD, PhD
Fritz Albert Lipmann FRS was a German-American biochemist and a co-discoverer in 1945 of coenzyme A. For this, together with other research on coenzyme A, he was awarded half the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1953 .Lipmann was born in Königsberg, Germany to a Jewish family.Lipmann...
- 1972 Gerald M. Edelman, MD, PhD
Gerald Maurice Edelman is an American biologist who shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work with Rodney Robert Porter on the immune system. Edelman's Nobel Prize-winning research concerned discovery of the structure of antibody molecules...
- 1985 Michael S. Brown, MD
Michael Stuart Brown is an American geneticist and Nobel Laureate. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Joseph L. Goldstein in 1985 for describing the regulation of cholesterol metabolism.- Life and career :...
, and Joseph L. Goldstein, MDJoseph L. Goldstein from Kingstree, South Carolina is a Nobel Prize winning biochemist and geneticist, and a pioneer in the study of cholesterol metabolism.-Biography:...
- 1989 J. Michael Bishop, MD
- 1998 Ferid Murad, MD, PhD
Ferid Murad is an Albanian-American physician and pharmacologist, and a co-winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He is also an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo.- Life :...
- 2009 Jack W. Szostak, PhD
Jack William Szostak is a Canadian American biologist of Polish British descent and Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Alexander Rich Distinguished Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. He was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, along with...
- 2011 Ralph Steinman, MD
Ralph Marvin Steinman was a Canadian immunologist and cell biologist at Rockefeller University, who in 1973 coined the term dendritic cells while working as a postdoc in the lab of Zanvil A. Cohn, also at Rockefeller University....
Rankings
In 2011, MGH was named the second best hospital in the United States by
U.S. News & World ReportU.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
. MGH consistently ranks as one of the country's top hospitals in
U.S. News & World ReportU.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
. In 2011, MGH was also ranked as one of the top three hospitals in the country for five specialties, including Diabetes & Endocrinology, Ear, Nose & Throat, Neurology & Neurosurgery, Orthopedics and Psychiatry.
In 2003, MGH was named the state's first Magnet hospital by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, a subsidiary of the
American Nurses AssociationThe American Nurses Association is a professional organization to advance and protect the profession of nursing. It started in 1896 as the Nurses Associated Alumnae and was renamed the American Nurses Association in 1911...
. Magnet recognition represents the highest honor awarded for nursing excellence.
In August 2011, Becker's Hospital Review listed MGH as number 12 on the 100 Top Grossing Hospitals in America with $5.64 billion in gross revenue.
Educational units
- Massachusetts General Hospital Academy
The Massachusetts General Hospital Academy is an educational organization for physicians, nurses, specialists, and other health professionals who diagnose, treat and care for patients across a variety of therapeutic areas, like cardiology, neurology, oncology and more...
- Massachusetts General Hospital Psychiatry Academy
The Massachusetts General Hospital Psychiatry Academy is an educational organization for psychiatrists, psychologists, other mental health professionals, and other healthcare professionals who diagnose and treat patients with mental health disorders...
- MGH Institute of Health Professions
External links