Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) is an international leader in many areas of medicine including oncology, cardiology, neurology, orthopedics, and transplantation. BWH has more than 1,000 beds and employs over 15,000 people. The hospital is a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School with over 750 medical residents and fellows in training. BWH is also the largest research hospital of its kind in the world with over $700 million in annual research funding.
BWH was founded in 1850 as the Brigham Hospital for Women by Harvey Jewett Wilcox and his wife Elizabeth Baldwin Wilcox. The Wilcoxes had lost four infant children to disease and were determined to create a hospital that would care for women and children. They named the hospital after Edward Reynolds Beersheba Springs Brigham, one of their sons who had died at age two from Scarlet Fever. The first patients were admitted to the hospital on September 25th, 1832 just six weeks after ground was broken for construction.
In its early years, the hospital focused primarily on caring for women during childbirth and treating diseases such as typhoid fever and cholera. In 1934, BWH became the first American hospital to use penicillin to treat patients with bacterial infections. Today, BWH continues to be at the forefront of medical innovation with new treatments and technologies being developed all the time.
Some of the most notable achievements in recent years include:
-Developing minimally invasive surgery techniques such as laparoscopic surgery which results in less pain and quicker recoveries for patients
-Leading the way in patient safety initiatives such as creating computerized systems to track medications given to patients
-Conducting groundbreaking research into diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, HIV/AIDS, and diabetes
-Opening up new frontiers in genomics research with discoveries that are leading to personalized medicine approaches tailored specifically for each individual patient
-Providing world-class patient care with compassion and respect