P&S Surgical Hospital history

William Welch (1875), one of “Big Four” founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital

1911 Columbia University and Presbyterian Hospital sign an agreement to establish the world’s first academic medical center.

Alvan Barach (1919), developed first practical oxygen tent

Benjamin Spock (1929), revolutionary baby doctor whose books influenced the way parents raise their children

John Lattimer (1938), helped establish the field of pediatric urology

1939 Pediatrician Hattie Alexander, MD, develops the first effective treatment for a lethal form of bacterial meningitis.

Opening originally with forty-seven beds, the hospital expanded to 110 beds in 1942.

1943 Bacitracin is developed as a new antibiotic, one that remains in use today.

Alfred Knudson (1947), developed a two-hit hypothesis for cancer

Elizabeth Davis (1949), founding director of Harlem Hospital’s psychiatry department

Baruch Blumberg (1951), Nobel Prize winner for his work on hepatitis B

P. Roy Vagelos (1954), former CEO of Merck & Co., which developed many major new drugs under his leadership

Ted Stanley (1965), anesthesiologist who co-created the fentanyl lollipop

Eve Slater (1971), first woman to become United States assistant secretary for health

In 1972 - The hospital grew to 310 beds.

Donna Mendes (1977), first African-American female vascular surgeon certified by the American Board of Surgery

1979 Richard Axel, MD, Saul J. Silverstein, PhD, and graduate student Michael H. Wigler discover a technique, called cotransformation, which allows foreign DNA to be inserted into a host cell to produce certain proteins.

Karin M. Muraszko (1981), first woman to chair neurosurgery at any medical school in the United States (University of Michigan)

In 1988, FSC was designated by the California State Legislature as the first participant in a pilot project and opened our post-surgical recovery care center.

Mary Killackey (1998), first woman to chair surgery at Tulane University

Fresno Surgery Center was renamed Fresno Surgical Hospital in 2006.

Since 2007 Columbia doctors, led by Craig Smith, MD, and Martin Leon, MD, conduct clinical trials that prove the value of minimally invasive procedures to replace aortic valves in patients who cannot tolerate open-heart surgery.