Mayo, Rush, Shands: The people behind the names of 10 of America's biggest hospitals

You know the names. Rush. Mayo. Sloan Kettering. But do you know the namesakes?

Hospitals and health systems put an awful lot of thought into their names. Some name their institutions after founders, others are inspired by acclaimed physicians and others still chose to honor their cherished donors or administrators.

Listed below are 10 of the people whose names you probably know in healthcare but whose stories you may not.

1. UF Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville, Fla.

William Augustine Shands was a prominent businessman and Florida senator. Born on July 21, 1889, his family moved to Gainesville (Fla.) when he was a child. He played baseball and football for the University of Florida before leaving to start a fertilizer business and, later, the Gainesville Poster-Advertising Company. Mr. Shands ran for Gainesville's city council, an experience that eventually led him to return to school to study law, furthering his business and political aspirations. In 1940, he was elected to the Florida Senate. As a senator, Mr. Shands enhanced the Gainesville community by building a teaching hospital. The University of Florida Colleges of Medicine and Nursing opened in 1956, followed by the UF Teaching Hospital in 1958, which was renamed in his honor as W.A. Shands Teaching Hospital and Clinics in 1965. Ever undergoing several more name changes, the institution is now known as UF Health Shands Hospital.

2. Rush University Medical Center in Chicago

Daniel Brainard, MD, founded Rush Medical College in 1837, which would go on to establish a teaching hospital and the basis for Rush University Medical Center. But the Rush name dates back to the origin of the United States.

Dr. Brainard named the school in honor of Benjamin Rush, MD, the only physician with medical school training to sign the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Rush was born in 1746 and went on to become a physician, chemistry professor, politician, the Surgeon General of the Middle Department of the Continental Army and an advocate for numerous causes. In 1776, the Constitutional Convention of Pennsylvania voted to send Mr. Rush to represent Pennsylvania in Congress where, on the Second Continental Congress, he signed the Declaration of Independence. He was 30 years old.

3. Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

William Worrall Mayo was born in England in 1819. He studied under famous chemist and physicist John Dalton before immigrating to the United States in 1946, after which he became a pioneer physician and surgeon for the Union Army. He settled in Rochester, Minn., in 1863. There, he opened a medical practice and began practicing medicine with his sons as well as additional physicians and science researchers. The integrated group practice became known as the Mayos' Clinic and developed a reputation for being very technologically advanced. Soon, Mayos' Clinic was attracting physicians and students from all over. As the practice grew, the name was eventually amended to Mayo Clinic. The rest is history.

4. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City

In 1884, the New York Cancer Hospital was founded on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Just 15 years later, the name was changed to General Memorial Hospital for the Treatment of Cancer and Allied Diseases. The hospital moved to a different plot of land donated by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., in 1936. In the 1940s, Alfred P. Sloan and Charles F. Kettering, two former General Motors executives, formed the Sloan Kettering Institute of biomedical research, which was adjacent to Memorial Hospital. In addition to serving as the president of GM, Mr. Sloan was a philanthropist, forming a foundation with programs for science and technology, education and standard of living. Mr. Kettering was a director of research at GM, engineer and accomplished inventor. In 1960, a new corporate entity — Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center — was formed to coordinate and guide the overall policy for Memorial Hospital and the Sloan Kettering Institute, officially forming a single institution in 1980.

5. Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston

Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston was created in 1980 when three of Boston's oldest and most prestigious Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals — the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, the Robert Breck Brigham Hospital, and the Boston Hospital for Women — merged. Peter Bent Brigham was a real estate baron and restaurateur whose namesake hospital opened in 1913 to care for "sick persons in indigent circumstances." Peter Bent Brigham's nephew, Robert Breck Brigham, opened his namesake hospital in 1914 to serve patients with arthritis and other debilitating joint diseases. The Boston Hospital for Women came about in 1966 when two, much older hospitals — Boston Lying-In Hospital and the Free Hospital for Women — formally merged.

6. NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City

The NYU Langone Medical Center was named as such in 2008 in honor of the Chairman of the Board of Trustees since 1999, Kenneth Langone. Mr. Langone and his wife Elaine donated $200 million to the medical center, the largest gift in its history. Mr. Langone is best known as co-founder of Home Depot, a director of the New York Stock Exchange and founder of the brokerage and investment banking firm Invemed. He has also been a trustee of New York University since 1997. Known simply as the NYU Medical Center before changing its name, the hospital has a long history dating back to 1841.

7. Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Mo.

Robert Barnes may have started out as a penniless orphan, but he worked his way from store clerk to bank president in St. Louis, Mo. In 1892, he died a very wealthy man. With no heirs, he left a sizeable bequest of $850,000 to build a modern general hospital to care for the sick and injured, regardless of creed, which eventually opened in 1914. Similarly, the Jewish Hospital of St. Louis, which had been caring for the community and furthering medical science since 1902, provided services to all without distinction of creed or nationality. After decades of both hospitals accomplishing remarkable feats independently, Barnes and Jewish Hospital officially affiliated in 1992.

8. Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC in Pittsburgh

Christopher Lyman Magee was a powerful politician in Pittsburgh and, eventually, a state senator. He founded Magee-Womens, which opened its doors in 1911, in honor of his mother. The hospital didn't start out as much at first. The first patients — 14 women and their infants — were brought in horse-drawn ambulances to a make-shift facility in Mr. Magee's home. But a lot has change since Magee-Womens' early days. Today, more than 500,000 babies have been born at the hospital and its outpatient visits have grown to 200,000 a year.

9. Beaumont Health System in Detroit

William Beaumont, MD, conducted hundreds of experiments and published numerous reports on human digestion and physiology in the 19th century. His work was groundbreaking at the time. Dr. Beaumont made his biggest breakthrough in 1822 while at an isolated army outpost on Mackinac Island, Mich. After a fur trapper suffered an abdominal wound that healed with a permanent opening, Dr. Beaumont took the opportunity to study digestion, both inside and outside the stomach. Dr. Beaumont died in 1953, just two years before his namesake opened its doors. Originally supposed to be named Oakwood Hospital, the decision was made to rename it after Dr. Beaumont after the building materials for the facility were mistakenly delivered to a different Oakwood Hospital.

10. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston

Sidney Farber, MD, founded the Children's Cancer Research Foundation in 1947. Dr. Farber was dedicated to providing compassionate, state-of-the-art treatment to children with cancer while developing the cancer preventatives, treatments and cures of the future. The foundation eventually expanded its services to patients of all ages in 1969 and, in 1974, became known the Sidney Farber Cancer Center in honor of its founder. In 1983, the long-term support of the cancer center by the Charles A. Dana Foundation was acknowledged by incorporating its chairman's name.

 

*Information was gathered from the respective institutions' website.

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