University Hospital 50th Anniversary

University Hospital 50^th Anniversary

University Hospital and Clinics opened its doors at its current location on Sept.16, 1956. Before that, doctors saw patients in a variety of University of Missouri-Columbia buildings including Parker Hall, McAlester Hall and then Noyes Hall.

Activities planned to celebrate University Hospital’s 50^th anniversary include a variety of events for both employees and the community.

“People in central Missouri have embraced University Hospital and Clinics, and community support remains a key to our success,” said Jim Ross, chief executive officer of University of Missouri Health Care.

According to historical records, the hospital, first known as the Medical Center, cost $13.6 million to build. It was dedicated Nov. 10, 1956, in a ceremony opened by Elmer Ellis, Ph.D., president of the University of Missouri. Powell B. McHaney, a University of Missouri curator, gave a speech titled “Our Continuing Job,” and Roscoe L. Pullen, M.D., dean of the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine, discussed “Potentialities of the University of Missouri Medical Center.”

On Nov. 9, 1956, the Columbia Daily Tribune noted that the new hospital was “one of the most modern in the nation, with all three buildings connected either above or below ground.”

Today, University Hospital and Clinics is part of the University of Missouri Health Care system and serves patients from every county in Missouri. The 268-bed hospital specializes in treating the most severe illnesses and injuries, offering the only Level I trauma center in mid-Missouri, numerous intensive care units and highly specialized medical and surgical services.

It also houses Children’s Hospital, the largest and most comprehensive pediatric health-care center in mid-Missouri. Children’s Hospital is the only facility in mid-Missouri offering comprehensive, specialized children’s services such as trauma care, neonatal transport, child life therapy and a hospital school.

The hospital also offers the George David Peak Memorial Burn Care Center, central Missouri’s only burn intensive care unit; the region’s largest team of minimally invasive surgeons; an ophthalmology institute, a sleep disorders center and a SameDay Surgery Center that offers hundreds of different procedures in its fully equipped operating rooms.

In 1982, University Hospital began a helicopter service that has grown to include helicopters based at University Hospital in Columbia, Mo.; at Lake Regional Health System in Osage Beach, Mo.; and in LaMonte, Mo., west of Sedalia.