OHSU Hospital

OHSU Hospital, built as the University of Oregon Medical School Hospital, joined Multnomah County Hospital (built 1923) and Doernbecher Children’s Hospital (built 1926) on the Marquam Hill campus in 1956. The original 14-story structure included inpatient beds for general medical and surgical care, psychiatric care, and pediatrics, as well as research laboratories, classrooms, and a pneumatic tube system for sending charts from the relocated Medical Records department to nurses’ stations on every level. The 9^th floor of the hospital connects to several other buildings: Kohler Pavilion, Hatfield Research Center, Doernbecher Children's Hospital, and the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center (PVAMC) Hospital via a pedestrian sky bridge.

On March 3, 1956, public officials, legislators, educators, healthcare professionals and the public converged on the University of Oregon Medical School Marquam Hill campus to hear remarks by Governor Elmo Smith and see Oregon’s newest educational facility, the University of Oregon Medical School Hospital. The dedication was made by Dr. R. E. Kleinsorge, president of the Oregon State Board of Higher Education. Welcoming visitors to the hospital, Dr. John R. Richards, Chancellor of the Oregon State System of Higher Education, urged the crowd, “Vision, if you will, that here are merely the means to do a better job of training future doctors, nurses, medical technologists, and to offer post-graduate training work to those who are already in the professions. The building is not the goal; it is the wherewithal to attain the goal of better instruction, fuller research and broader services to the people of the state…”

Construction began on the 14-story original structure in the spring of 1953. The hospital's patient capacity included 128 beds for general medical and surgical patients, 31 for psychiatric care, and 118 for pediatrics (marking a move for Doernbecher Children’s Hospital from its previous free-standing building, now Dillehunt Hall). The patient rooms were equipped with what were then state-of-the-art communications systems between the beds and nurses’ stations, and pneumatic tubes whisked charts from the Medical Records department to the hospital admitting department and on to the nurses’ station on each level. The facility also included administrative offices, classrooms, research laboratories and living quarters for resident physicians and interns, as well as occupational and physical therapy departments. The hospital was connected to the Outpatient Clinic (now Sam Jackson Hall) by a covered walkway, which is still standing.

In 1972, a nine-story wing was added to the east side of the teaching hospital to house modern surgeries and facilities for a new Department of Radiation Oncology. In 1973, when Multnomah County transferred Multnomah County Hospital (MCH) to the medical school, University Hospital was created through the merger of the former Multnomah County Hospital, the Medical School Hospital, and the outpatient clinics. Multnomah County Hospital became University Hospital North; the Medical School Hospital was renamed University Hospital South.

After the Oregon state legislature changed the institution's name to Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) from University of Oregon Health Sciences Center in 1981, the hospital became OHSU Hospital.

OHSU School of Medicine. "Reflections on Yesterday: OHSU School of Medicine History." 2004. https://doi.org/10.6083/g158bj09p.

Subject file: University Hospital. Historical Collections & Archives, OHSU Library.

University of Oregon Alumni Association. Old Oregon. University of Oregon Alumni Association: May 1956, 4-5.