Continuing Our Mission of Service since 1857
The history of St. Mary's Medical Center, the
oldest continuously operating hospital in the city, is an
inspiring testimony to the tireless efforts of the Sisters of
Mercy, outstanding physicians and the many other dedicated
individuals who have committed their talents and resources to
serving the community of San Francisco, including the poor and
marginalized .
The story actually begins in 1831, when Irish
heiress Catherine McAuley used her fortune to establish the Sisters
of Mercy at the Convent of Mercy in Dublin, Ireland. A
teaching-nursing-social services congregation that has become the
second largest order of religious women in the world, the Sisters
of Mercy sponsor and co-sponsor many organizations and ministries,
including St. Mary's Medical Center and Catholic Healthcare
West. Six Sisters from the order's Burlingame Region -- which
covers California, Phoenix, Arizona and Peru -- continue to serve
vital roles at St. Mary's today.
In 1854, Rev. Hugh Gallagher, at the request
of San Francisco's first Archbishop Joseph Alemany, solicited the
Sisters for service in San Francisco. Almost all of the 29
Sisters volunteered. Eight Sisters were chosen to make the
journey, headed by 25-year-old Sister Mary Baptist Russell (nee
Katherine Russell), who had joined the order at the age of 19 and
nursed victims through Ireland's horrible cholera epidemic of 1849
-- an experience that later would prove valuable in San
Francisco.
The Sisters faced a harrowing, three-month
journey. Mother Russell booked passage on the Arctic,
scheduled to leave Dublin on September 13. In a twist of
fate, the ship was overbooked, so the Sisters sailed from Liverpool
on the Canada a few days later. The Arctic collided
with another vessel in a dense fog, and everyone on board died.
After crossing the Atlantic, the Sisters faced an exhausting
crossing of the Isthmus of Nicaragua by river boat and mule train
before boarding the Pacific steamer, Cortes, for the last leg of
their journey, sharing the voyage with a motley crowd of gold
prospectors. The valiant Irish nuns disembarked to a chilly
gray dawn in San Francisco on Friday, December 8, 1854.
After a few weeks of sharing accommodations
with the Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Mercy rented a six-room
cottage on Vallejo Street, across from the only hospital in the
city of 35,000, the State Marine Hospital. Within months, the
Sisters were called to aid a city in crisis when the S.S. Uncle Sam
arrived September 5, 1855, carrying the deadly Asiatic cholera that
ravaged the city for six weeks.
In the interval, the California Legislature
had withdrawn its responsibility for the indigent sick, ruling that
each county must care for its own. The San Francisco Board of
Supervisors petitioned the Sisters to organize and operate the
first County Hospital, using their own borrowed funds to purchase
the old Stockton Street Hospital.
By 1857, it was evident the Board of Supervisors would not honor
their obligations to reimburse the Sister for their expenses in
caring for the indigent. The Sisters reluctantly had to terminate
the Mercy management of the County Hospital. On July 19, the
County patients were moved, and on July 27, the Sisters opened the
Stockton Street building as St. Mary's Hospital, the first Catholic
Hospital in San Francisco -- beginning a new chapter in their
ongoing story of providing health care and community services to
the city of San Francisco.
Highlights of St.
Mary's Medical Center from today to the beginning.
2003
The QuickCare program is launched in the Emergency Room. It
guarantees that patients with urgent medical problems will be seen
by a doctor or nurse within 30 minutes.
2002
St. Mary's opens the first Chest Pain Evaluation Unit in the city
to provide rapid evaluation of patients with chest pain that is of
unclear origin. Spine Center surgeons receive FDA approval as
one of five centers in the U.S. for trials of the Prodisc
artificial disc replacement.
2001
St. Mary's opens a new state-of-the-art, all-digital Cardiac
Catheterization Lab, one of the most advanced labs in the
U.S. The Spine Center pioneers development of the X-Stop
Device, a non-invasive procedure for spinal stenosis.
2000
HCIA-Sachs names St. Mary's in its national tabulation of "100 Top
Hospitals: Cardiovascular Benchmarks for Success."
1993
St. Mary's launches the WomanKind Program, a comprehensive women's
healthcare program.
1991
The
St. Mary's Rehabilitation Program is expanded and renamed the Ben
Berman Outpatient Rehabilitation Center, a distinguished facility
for treatment of strokes, head injuries and other impairments.
1987
St. Mary's establishes the HIV/AIDS Services Department and the
CARE Unit, the world's first program for AIDS-related dementia.
1986
The Sisters of Mercy, Burlingame, join with the Sisters of Mercy,
Auburn, and the Adrian Dominican Sisters of Michigan to form
Catholic Healthcare West.
1982
The St. Mary's Western Heart Institute opens, bringing together the
best diagnosticians, surgeons and rehabilitation experts.
Surgeons perform approximately 1,000 coronary artery bypass
procedures each year, in addition to 1,200 cardiac
catheterizations, balloon angioplasties and other procedures.
1980
The Sports Medicine Center at St. Mary's opens to treat both
professional and amateur athletes for sports-related injuries.
1978
St. Mary's becomes the first hospital in the U.S. to perform the
balloon angioplasty procedure.
1974
The newest St. Mary's, an 11-story acute care and medical facility,
is dedicated. The tower at 450 Stanyan Street becomes an
instant landmark in San Francisco.
1972
Cardiologists
begin performing cardiac catheterizations at St. Mary's. St. Mary's
launches the Hospital Spiritual Education Program, the forerunner
of today's Clinical Pastoral Education Unit, now the largest
such program on the West Coast, serving as the center for both
Saint Francis and Sequoia as well as St. Mary's.
1971
The first coronary bypass surgery at St. Mary's is performed. St.
Mary's breaks ground for the current hospital facility.
1970
The Joint Center opens, beginning with total hip replacements, the
first such surgery in California.
1968
The Respiratory Care Unit, the Cardiovascular Diagnostic Unit and
the Sports Medicine Program were opened. Meanwhile an influx
of Haight-Ashbury "flower children" requiring medical care turns to
the Sr. Mary Philippa Clinic, the peak period of service for the
clinic.
1968
The Sr. Mary Philippa Clinic is inundated with medical requests
from the Flower Children of the Haight Ashbury.
1966
The
St. Mary's Clinic is expanded and renamed in honor of Sr. Mary
Philippa, SM who provided exceptional commitment to the Mercy Style
of Care and who served St. Mary's and the residents of San
Francisco from 1918 to 1963.
1965
St. Mary's opens the Speech and Learning Center under the direction
of Anna Foudy to serve the needs of children requiring special
education.
1954
St. Mary's McAuley Neuropsychiatric Institute opens, offering the
most comprehensive and diversified psychiatric program for children
and adults in Northern California.
1946
Archbishop Mitty asks Sisters of Mercy to open a second Catholic
Hospital in San Francisco. The Sisters purchase the former Dante
Hospital at Broadway and Van Ness and rename it Notre Dame
Hospital.
1937
St. Mary's College of Nursing moves to St. Mary's Hall on Hayes
Street. The college has 160 students and the Hall also serves as
the dormitory.
1926
A new wing, additional main corridor and service units building are
completed at St. Mary's.
1923
St.
Mary's Clinic is opened to provide high quality medical care to
individuals and families, especially the elderly and the
poor.
1922
St. Mary's Volunteers and Auxiliary are formed, focusing on
donating time and energy to assist patients as well as raising
funds for the support of programs, equipment and furnishings.
1911
The new St. Mary's Hospital opens on Hayes Street, a gleaming white
structure with facilities for 150 patients.
1906
St. Mary's opens a Tent Hospital on the Sisters of Mercy property
adjacent to Golden Gate Park. For over two months the hospital
responds to the needs of the sick and wounded of the terrible
Earthquake and Fire.
The Sisters of Mercy acquire the Maudsley
Sanitarium, quickly repair it and open in June as the temporary
site of St. Mary's Hospital.
1906
St. Mary's Hospital on Rincon Hill is destroyed by the fire that
devastates San Francisco after the Earthquake. Not a patient is
lost and they, with vital equipment, are ferried across the Bay to
Providence Hospital.
1900
Sisters of Mercy establish St. Mary's School of Nursing, the first
nursing college in California to be accredited by the National
Nursing Accreditation Service.
1898
Mother Russell dies and San Francisco papers list her as the "best
known charitable worker on the Pacific Coast". Mother Russell is
listed as the only woman among the 50 individuals honored as the
"Makers of Northern California".
1898
Several of the Sisters of Mercy move into the Presidio of San
Francisco for nine weeks to provide care for the soldiers stricken
with typhoid and influenza.
1871
Mother Russell opens an elementary and secondary School for Girls
in the Rincon Hill hospital. She also starts an industrial Training
School and an Employment Service. Over 1,000 young homeless women
are trained and placed in jobs. Many of these are former
prostitutes.
1868
The Sisters of Mercy staff the two "pest houses" set up by the city
to isolate victims of a black smallpox epidemic.
1861
A new St. Mary's Hospital is constructed on Rincon Hill to replace
the antiquated building on Stockton Street
Sisters of Mercy begin their Community
Outreach Program. They trudge the muddy lanes and alleys of San
Francisco, bring hearty Irish Stew and clean bed linen to the sick
and poor, wherever they find them.
A formal program to visit and comfort the
prisoners at San Quentin Jail is begun.
1857
The Sisters of Mercy withdraw from the County Hospital for failure
of the City to pay. Ten days later, they open St. Mary's Hospital.
This becomes the first Catholic hospital on the Pacific Coast.
St. Mary's Hospital develops an exceptional
medical staff, including Dr. Beverly Cole, founder of the
University of California School of Medicine.
Joining him on staff is Dr. Levi Cooper Lane,
founder of Stanford Medical School and rated "the most brilliant
medical scholar of the West, its leading surgeon and teacher of
surgery."
1857
Dr. A. J. Bowie, especially skilled in plastic and bone surgery,
resigns from the Navy to work at St. Mary's and Marine Hospital.
The leading medical journal of the time writes, "It cannot be
denied that San Francisco and Dr. A. J. Bowie lead the surgical
world in the success of operations upon bones."
Dr. Henry Gibbons, another member of the
charter staff, begins and edits the Pacific Medical and Surgical
Journal. He is also a key organizer of the state and county medical
societies.
Dr. James Whitney spearheads St. Mary's
Medical Education Program and is noted for his oratory skills as
well as his views in medicine and surgery.
1855
Asiatic Cholera epidemic hits the city. The Sisters of Mercy donate
their services to the State Hospital and work "round the clock",
eventually restoring calm and order to the frightened city.
Sisters of Mercy asked to run the San
Francisco County Hospital and assured that they will be reimbursed
for their expenses.
The Sisters of Mercy purchase the old Stockton
Street State hospital (with funds the Sisters borrowed) and
officially open San Francisco's first County Hospital.
Two years pass and no reimbursements from the
City of San Francisco are received.
1854
Eight Sisters of Mercy, headed by Mother Mary Baptist Russell
arrive in San Francisco from Ireland.
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