The John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County (shortened ''Stroger Hospital'', formerly Cook County Hospital) is a

public hospital A public hospital, or government hospital, is a hospital which is government owned and is predominantly funded by the government and operates predominantly off the money that is collected from taxpayers to fund healthcare initiatives. In almost al ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, Illinois, United States. It is part of Cook County Health, along with Provident Hospital of Cook County and several related centers, which provides public primary, specialty, and tertiary healthcare services to residents of

Cook County, Illinois Cook County is the List of counties in Illinois, most populous county in the U.S. state of Illinois and the List of the most populous counties in the United States, second-most-populous county in the United States, after Los Angeles County, C ...

. Cook County Health also includes CountyCare, a Medicaid managed care plan. Cook County Hospital was founded 1832, and became an innovative

teaching hospital A teaching hospital or university hospital is a hospital or medical center that provides medical education and training to future and current health professionals. Teaching hospitals are almost always affiliated with one or more universities a ...

. In 2001–2002, it moved into new quarters adjacent to its historic Beaux-Arts complex in the

Illinois Medical District The Illinois Medical District (IMD) is a special-use zoning district two miles west of the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. The Illinois Medical District consists of 560 acres of medical research facilities, labs, a biotechnology business incuba ...

and was renamed for hospital board president John Stroger Jr.

Facility and location

Stroger employs 300 attending physicians and over 400 fellows and residents. It has of floor space, and 464 beds. It is located at 1901 W. Harrison Street, and is a part of the 305 acre (1.2 km²)

on Chicago's West Side, which is one of the largest concentrations of medical facilities in the world.

History

Cook County Hospital, which opened in 1857, was used as a teaching hospital by Rush Medical School until the Civil War, when it was transitioned to an army hospital. After the war, it continued its purpose as a center for medical education and founded the first medical internship in the country in 1866. By the 1900s, the hospital was overseen by surgeons and physicians in Chicago who volunteered their services at the hospital, which was rebuilt in 1916. Regarded as one of the world's greatest teaching hospitals, many interns, residents, and graduate physicians came to see the medical and surgical advances. Innovations included the world's first

blood bank A blood bank is a center where blood gathered as a result of blood donation is stored and preserved for later use in blood transfusion. The term "blood bank" typically refers to a department of a hospital usually within a clinical pathology labora ...

and surgical fixation of fractures. In the 1930s, Dr.

Bernard Fantus Bernard Fantus (September 1, 1874 – April 14, 1940) was a Hungarian Jewish-American physician. He established the first hospital blood bank in the United States in 1937 at Cook County Hospital, Chicago while he served there as director of the ph ...

, after finding ways to lengthen the preservation of blood outside the body, invented and opened the world's first blood bank, the Cook County Hospital Blood Bank. In the early 1960s, William Shoemaker, a student of the famed surgical physiologist, Francis Daniels Moore, spearheaded surgical critical care when he organized the first Burn and Trauma Unit. In 1986, Agnes D. Lattimer was appointed medical director of Cook County Hospital, making her the first black woman to serve as medical director of a major American hospital. Cook County Hospital was renamed for

John H. Stroger Jr. John H. Stroger Jr. (May 19, 1929January 18, 2008) was an American politician who served from 1994 until 2006 as the first African-American president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners (the primary executive officer of Cook County, Illi ...

, the then-president of the Cook County Board, in 2001. The new Cook County (Stroger) Hospital was opened in December 2002, and is housed in a facility located adjacent to the old hospital building. The former Cook County Hospital building was renovated and reopened as a privately funded mixed use development, and

Hyatt Hotel Hyatt Hotels Corporation, commonly known as Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, is an American multinational hospitality company headquartered in the Riverside Plaza area of Chicago that manages and franchises luxury and business hotels, resorts, and vac ...

In popular culture

* ''County General Hospital'', a fictional hospital that served as the setting for the

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

serial medical drama '' ER'', was loosely based on Cook County Hospital; in the first episode a patient refers to the hospital as "Cook County General" during a cognitive test. * Cook County Hospital is also used in the 1993 movie '' The Fugitive''. * The documentary ''I Call It Murder'' aired on the BBC television show '' Man Alive'' in 1979, which reported on the challenges facing the staff at Cook County Hospital. At that time, the hospital was one of the few free hospitals in the United States. * In 1996,

Diana, Princess of Wales Diana, Princess of Wales (born Diana Frances Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997), was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and mother of Princes William, ...

visited patients and doctors in the

AIDS The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...

ward and trauma center, while on a tour of Chicago. * In the book series ''

The Dresden Files ''The Dresden Files'' is a series of contemporary fantasy/Mystery fiction, mystery novels written by American author Jim Butcher. The first novel, ''Storm Front (The Dresden Files), Storm Front''—which was also Butcher's writing debut—was p ...

'', Stroger Hospital is mentioned by name and is a setting for various scenes across several books.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Stroger, John H. Jr. Hospital of Cook County Chicago Landmarks

Hospital A hospital is a healthcare institution providing patient treatment with specialized Medical Science, health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically ...

Hospitals in Chicago 1834 establishments in Illinois Public hospitals in the United States