Euclid Hospital history

The story of University Hospitals began 150 years ago, on May 14, 1866.

1868: Wilson Street Hospital opened in a small house on Cleveland’s lakefront to provide Cleveland city residents access to medical care.

1888: Cleveland City Hospital formally changed its name to Lakeside Hospital.

1894: The White Hospital (today UH Portage Medical Center) opened in Ravenna.

1898: Lakeside Training School for Nurses opened.

1905: Rainbow Cottage relocated to Green Road in South Euclid.

1906: Babies’ Dispensary and Hospital opened.

1908: The Community Hospital of Bedford (today UH Bedford Medical Center) opened.

1912: Samaritan Hospital (today UH Samaritan Medical Center) opened in Ashland.

1914: After several moves, Rainbow Cottage changed its name to Rainbow Hospital for Crippled and Convalescent Children.

1919: Brown Memorial Hospital (today UH Conneaut Medical Center) opened.

1923: A seven-day capital campaign raised $2.75 million, surpassing its original goal of $2.5 million, to raise funds to build new facilities in University Circle for Babies and Children’s and Maternity hospitals.

1924: Lakeside Nurses Training School merged into Western Reserve University’s new school of nursing, which later became the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing.

1927: A five-day fundraising campaign raised more than $8 million for a new Lakeside Hospital to be built on the University Circle campus, and a new Rainbow Hospital in South Euclid.

1931:The new Lakeside Hospital and adjoining Leonard C. Hanna House opened on the University Circle campus.

1935: Claude Beck, MD, performed the first operation for coronary artery disease.

1939: Charles I. Thomas, MD, performed the first corneal transplant in Northeast Ohio, paving the way to restored vision for millions of people.

1941: The Lakeside Unit was reactivated and deployed to the South Pacific to staff the first American military hospital in World War II.

1946: Louis Pillemer, PhD, developed preparations of tetanus antigen, leading to the first successful triple vaccine (DPT) targeting diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough) and tetanus, which virtually eliminated these once-fatal diseases in the United States

In 1950 the Euclid-Glenville Hospital Association was formed, and plans were developed to build a new hospital at a site in Euclid.

1951: James Reagan, MD, pioneered cytopathology for cancer detection and introduced diagnostic terminology for Pap smear results reporting, including dysplasia, carcinoma in situ and squamous carcinoma.

1953: Frank Nulsen, MD, pioneered pressure-regulated one-way valves for the treatment of hydrocephalus (water on the brain). He, along with Charles Herndon, MD, and Lester Persky, MD, also established one of the first hydrocephalus and myelodysplasia clinics for children in the country.

1954: Louis Pillemer, PhD, in collaboration with Irwin Lepow, PhD, and Enrique Ecker, PhD, discovered an alternative pathway for the immune response that does not involve antibodies.

1955: Claude Beck, MD, and Walter Pritchard, MD, performed the first successful reversal of a fatal heart attack outside of an operating room, with open heart massage.

1956: The Howard M. Hanna Pavilion opened on the University Circle campus for the care of psychiatric patients.

1958: Benjamin Spock, MD, launched his groundbreaking child-rearing study that explored breast-feeding, weaning, toilet training and separation anxiety while an associate physician in the Department of Psychiatry.

1961: Richmond Heights General Hospital (today UH Richmond Medical Center) opened.

1965: Kenneth Ryan, MD, was the first in the world to describe how human ovaries produce estrogen from two types of specialized ovarian cells, laying the foundation for advances in female health.

1968: S.S.C. Yen, MD, developed the first radioimmunoassay techniques for the measurement of three important pregnancy hormones, enhancing the evaluation of maternal and infant health in pregnancy.

1969: The role of cholesterol in blood vessel disease was developed by William Insull, MD.

1971: Charles Herndon, MD, was one of first surgeons in the United States to perform a hip replacement, conducting the procedure in a specially constructed operating room he designed to reduce infection in joint replacement surgery.

1972: John Kennell, MD, and Marshall Klaus, MD, demonstrated the importance of maternal-infant bonding, leading to revolutionary changes in the care of mothers and newborn infants in hospitals throughout the western world.

1974: Rainbow Hospital merged with Babies and Children’s Hospital to become Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital.

1978: Research technique to record accurate cardiac output was developed by Herman K. Hellerstein, MD, Anthony Bacevice, MD, and Peter Katona, MD.

1980: Irwin Merkatz, MD, conducted the first clinical trials of ritodrine, the first Food and Drug Administration-approved drug to inhibit pre-term labor, at UH MacDonald Women’s Hospital.

1981: Nikon Cheung, MD, and other researchers at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, pioneered work treating neuroblastoma patients with antibodies, significantly advancing the field of targeted cancer immune-therapy.

1982: First hospital in United States to house superconducting whole-body Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Scanner for diagnostic imaging without x-ray radiation.

1987: Jerrold Ellner, MD, and Frederick Robbins, MD, established a memorandum of understanding with Makerere University in Uganda, linking Cleveland and Kampala AIDS research and care efforts.

1988: The University Hospitals Health System formed.

1989: Anthony Maniglia, MD, Chair, and Laura Cozzi, MD, established a technique for safe outpatient tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy, using bismuth to control bleeding.

1993: UH began merging with various community hospitals in Geauga County, Bedford, Conneaut, Richmond Heights and Geneva to create a regional health care system.

1994: Susan Shurin, MD, performed the first umbilical cord transplant to treat childhood leukemia, using cord blood stem cells from the patient’s newborn sister.

1996: Pierluigi Gambetti, MD, developed the first classification of sporadic prion diseases, now used worldwide in diagnosing this class of dementias, caused by mutation of the prion protein gene.

1997: University Hospitals partnered with Southwest General Health Center in Middleburg Heights.

2000: Raymond Onders, MD, and colleagues developed an innovative diaphragmatic pacing system (DPS) that has since greatly improved the quality of life for paralyzed people and people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

2002: The reporting of an ALLHAT (Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial) study by Jackson Wright, MD, showed that thiazide-type diuretics should be considered first for drug therapy in patients with hypertension.

2004: A transformational gift of an initial $25 million from the Goodman family, which continues to grow today through their fund at The Cleveland Foundation, is recognized in naming the Doctor Donald J. and Ruth Weber Goodman Discovery Center for Clinical Research at UH Seidman Cancer Center.

2005: Sanford Markowitz, MD, PhD, discovered a new stool DNA test for colon cancer that became the first commercial test for colon cancer detection.

2008: Mark A. Griswold, PhD, developed parallel imaging technique for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which produces clearer, more accurate images in shorter time.

2010: The Program of All-inclusive Care of the Elderly (PACE), one of only two such programs in Ohio, is established.

2011: UH Ahuja Medical Center opened in Beachwood.

2012: The Harrington Discovery Institute was established as a result of a $50 million gift from the Harrington family, the largest gift in UH history to date.

Otolaryngologists Maroun Semaan, MD (left), and Cliff Megerian, MD, in collaboration with neurosurgeon Nicholas Bambakidis, MD, and Gail Murray, MD, performed the auditory brainstem implant on Maggie Gleason, 2014

2015: Karen Mole and her family foundation, the Hampson Family Foundation, gave $10.6 million to UH Elyria Medical Center to support the development and expansion of programs that address the health care needs of Lorain County residents.