Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center (also known as County General) is an 800-bed teaching hospital located in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. LAC-USC Medical Center is adjacent to the University of Southern California Health Sciences Campus which comprises the USC Keck School of Medicine, USC University Hospital and the USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and Hospital.

Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center is one of the largest public hospitals and medical training centers in the United States, and the largest single provider of healthcare in Los Angeles County. It offers access to critical healthcare services for the region's medically underserved and treats over 28% of the region's trauma victims (2005).

The LAC-USC Medical Center provides a full spectrum of emergency, inpatient and outpatient services. These include medical, surgical and emergency/trauma services in the Center's General Hospital. The Women's and Children's Hospital provides obstetrical, gynecological, pediatric and specialized neonatal intensive care services as well as psychiatric services for adults, adolescents and children. (The nearby USC University Hospital provides many specialized services including gamma knife for treating cancer and an organ transplant service. This is a private hospital and doesn't have an emergency department, it is used for the specialized programs in the LAC+USC system.) It is staffed by doctors from the Keck School of Medicine of USC. It currently has 745 beds, but construction has begun for a smaller replacement hospital that will focus more on critical care. Physicians and nurses provide patient care, lead clinical research and oversee the training of more than 1,000 medical residents and medical students at the Medical Center.

The Los Angeles County Hospital and the University of Southern California Medical School were first affiliated in 1885, five years after USC was founded. The Center is one of the busiest public hospitals in the Western United States, recording nearly 39,000 inpatient discharges, and one million ambulatory care visits each year. The Emergency Department has one of the largest patient volume census in the world with over 150,000 visits per year. It operates one of only three burn centers in Los Angeles County and one of the few Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Units in Southern California. In addition to its affiliation with the University of Southern California School of Medicine, LACMC is also the home of the Los Angeles County College of Nursing and Allied Health (http://www.ladhs.org/wps/portal/CollegeOfNursing/) which has prepared registered nurses for professional practice since its founding in 1895.

Marilyn Monroe was born in the charity ward of this hospital on June 1, 1926. The hospital also has a jail ward; in 1954, Stan Getz was processed in the jail ward as his wife gave birth to their third child one floor below. He had been arrested for attempting to rob a pharmacy to get a morphine fix. The medical center's distinct Beaux Arts-style main building served as the exterior of the hospital in the opening titles of the soap opera General Hospital beginning in 1975, and for the 1998 Meg Ryan–Nicolas Cage movie City of Angels.

The Keck School of Medicine faculty leads the care for half of all AIDS and sickle-cell anemia patients in Southern California and provides special clinical care programs for patients with diseases such as multiple sclerosis and diabetes.

In July 2006, USC's liver transplant program was being investigated for the deaths of some patients who received liver transplants. These liver transplant deaths, however, occurred at USC University hospital. USC University Hospital is an affiliated private hospital located a few blocks from LAC–USC Medical Center. The medical center's three-year cardiology fellowship accreditation will be revoked by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education on June 30, 2009 unless training and teaching plans are reformed.

The inscription above the entrance reads: The doctors of the staff give their services without charge in order that no citizens of the county shall be deprived of health or life for lack of such care and services.

Address

USC University Hospital
1500 San Pablo St.
Los Angeles CA 90033
USA +1 323-442-8500

References

External links

• Official site at USC.edu
• Official site at LADHS.org
• Official site at LACUSC.org

• Official site of the Emergency Department at LAC+USC
• Official site at USCUH.com

Los Angeles County College of Nursing and Allied Health 1237 N. Mission Rd. Los Angeles, CA. 90033-1084 (323) 226-4911 http://www.ladhs.org/wps/portal/CollegeOfNursing/

See also

• Knocking, a documentary on Jehovah's Witnesses featuring USC Medical Center