White Memorial Medical Center

Name :

White Memorial Medical Center

Address  :

1720 Cesar E Chavez Avenue

Town  :

Los Angeles

State  :

California

Country  :

USA

Post Code:

90033

Phone  :

323 268 5000

Web URL  :

Available

Email  :

info@whitememorial.com

Description

White Memorial Medical Center WMMC is a notforprofit faithbased teaching hospital which provides a full range of inpatient outpatient emergency and diagnostic services to communities in and near downtown Los Angeles

Keeping our communities healthy has been the mission of White Memorial Medical Center ever since our hospital was founded by the Seventhday Adventist Church in 1913

Today White Memorial is one of the regions leading notforprofit hospitals Services include behavioral medicine cardiac and vascular care intensive and general medical care oncology orthopedic care rehabilitation specialized and general surgery and womens and childrens services

As a major teaching hospital White Memorial also plays an important role in training physicians nurses and other medical professionals And we are an employer of choice for the communities we serve

Our Mission
As a Seventhday Adventist medical center we are a family of caring professionals serving our community with a passion for excellence a spirit of Christian service and a commitment to medical education

Our Vision
Building on our legacy of primary care and medical education White Memorial will become regionally respected for specialty and tertiary health care in Los Angeles We will be known for our unwavering pursuit of excellence in quality innovation and service

Read about our mission in action

Our Guiding Principles
At White Memorial we pledge to uphold the hospitals values as a Christian organization by living these six Guiding Principles every day This is our promise to our patients our community and each other

I will reach for the highest standards in my work

I will provide services that my customers say are excellent

I will treat others with the same compassion and respect that I would want my family to experience

I will take personal responsibility to ensure the safety of patients coworkers and all others I come into contact with at work

I will use all resources responsibly and efficiently

I will be honest in all things

History

Imagine placing your life in the hands of a doctor who has had just nine months or less of training In the early 1900s that was often all it took to earn a medical degree

Seventhday Adventist church leader and healthcare reformer Ellen G White called for a higher standard of medical training As a result when the Adventist healthcare facility in Loma Linda California opened its College of Medical Evangelists in 1909 medical students were required to complete four years of study

In rural Loma Linda however there werent enough patients to give medical students the training they needed Consequently the medical school faced closure To save their school leaders looked to the west toward the growing urban center of Los Angeles to keep their program alive

Turning Dreams Into Reality
On September 29 1913 the College of Medical Evangelists opened a small storefront clinic at 941 East First Street in the heart of Los Angeles People flocked to the new clinic and the medical school finally had the patients it needed It was from these humble beginnings that White Memorial Medical Center was born Three years later the influx of patients was so great that there was a need to expand the clinic The drive began for a hospital to be built at a nearby site on Boyle Avenue and named in honor of Ellen G White

However financial pressures were threatening to close both the medical school and the clinic and there were no funds to build the new hospital In Loma Linda Adventist leaders anguished over what seemed to be an inevitable future As they prepared for a final vote there was a knock at the door Four women of the church entered the room and made an extraordinary proposal They were willing to champion a campaign to raise the 61000 needed to construct White Memorial Hospital

Thanks to the Herculean fundraising efforts of 50 women of the Adventist church the church purchased property on Boyle Avenue in 1916 In 1917 a new dispensary opened on the site Meanwhile construction began on cottagestyle buildings that were to become a permanent hospital

So it was on April 21 1918 that a crowd of 2500 people gathered to dedicate White Memorial Hospital Not even an earthquake that struck during the ceremony could dampen the enthusiasm of those gathered to celebrate the culmination of years of grand dreams fervent prayers and hard work

A Commitment to Succeed
In 1920 medical students exchanged physical labor for tuition as they helped to build a new dormitory for nurses They also took on janitorial duties in the dispensary and classrooms they even started their own cafeteria gathering in the evenings after their studies were over to prepare food for the next day Their cafeteria made impressive profits which they donated to purchase sterilizers for the surgical department

The hospital deepened its commitment to medical training with the opening of the White Memorial School of Nursing in 1923 an institution that held a prominent place in the hospital and community until it was moved to Loma Linda in 1948

Caring for a Community in Need
The Great Depression that followed the stock market crash of 1929 sent ripples all the way across the country to Los Angeles where White Memorial Hospital experienced its lowest occupancy rates ever by October 1932 only 50 patients remained During those financially dark days physicians often accepted flour chickens and other goods as payment Responding with compassion to the poverty around them a group of White Memorial nurses formed the Ellen White Nurses to provide medical attention and food to thousands of poor people in the community The nurses donated their time the hospital donated food and the County of Los Angeles provided transportation

By the mid1930s the initial jolt of the Depression had passed and White Memorial began looking again to the future Responding to an evergrowing demand on its original facilities the hospital built a 180bed fivestory concrete and steel structure at a cost of 330000 Dedicated in 1937 the building was the first earthquakeresistant hospital in California

Over the previous quartercentury White Memorial Hospital had gone through a difficult but triumphant beginning period weathered the Great Depression and built a facility that would accommodate the needs of a rapidly increasing population A new decade was just around the corner and the 180bed hospital was ready to face it wholeheartedly