UCSF at SFGH

1850 San Francisco Granted a city Charter and creates a Board of Health; cholera strikes, temporary hospital set up.

1857 City and County opens it first permanent hospital in the former North Beach schoolhouse at Stockton and Francisco streets.

1864 "In the fall of 1864, Dr. Hugh Toland opened his new medical school, which in 1872 would become the University of California. The Medical School building was located on Stockton Street near Chestnut adjacent to the City and County Hospital...In 1865, Toland was granted permission to use the hospital for clinical instruction." (pg37*)

1872 "On August 28, 1872, the New City-County Hospital on Potrero Street was opened...it was described as a two-story, wooden frame building with a brick foundation..."(pg43*)

1873 Agreement allows City and County Hospital to serve as UC and Stanford medical schools' clinical facility.

1906 "The Earthquake and Great Fire devastate the City in April 18, 1906... the Hospital with its wood frame structure anchored on the firm rock of Potrero Hill survived more or less intact, with minimal injury to inmates or staff." (pg60*)

1907 Long needed children's ward and contagious pavilion open.

1908 Second plague epidemic strikes; hospital pronounced unfit for patient care when plague infested rats and flees are found there; wooden buildings burned to the ground by city order and patients moved to the old Jockey Club Racetrack in the Ingleside district, where box stalls and grandstands are converted into a temporary hospital; "Mission Emergency" Hospital, one of the city owned network, operates out of a shack on the Potrero Ave site.

1915 New San Francisco General Hospital, landscaped, red brick, Italian Renaissance style complex, dedicated during the City's celebration of the completion of the Panama Canal; motorized ambulances replace the horse-drawn vans.

1924 Psychiatric ward opens to treat acutely ill patients and reduce state hospital admissions.

1959 "In May 1959 in the first contract with the University of California was signed and amounted to 1% of the total hospital budget or $154,000...the value of teaching programs to a public hospital was emphasized by the university in their negotiations with the city..." (pg90*)

1963 "...a modern medical library funded primarily by UC was opened on Ward 31. It was named the Briggs-Barnett library after two former chiefs of medicine on the UC and Stanford service." (pg93*)

1965 "The pressing need for more psychiatric beds, the general overcrowding, and the problems of maintenance and staffing all combined to emphasize the inadequacy of the 50-year-old hospital...a $33.7 million bond issue...passed overwhelmingly with the highest support of any bond since the since the earthquake of 1906." (pg93*)

1971 Groundbreaking for the new hospital.

1972 Trauma Center opens at Mission Emergency, with a grant from NIH.

1973 Outpatient department, Stroke Research Center, coronary and respiratory ICUs, Family Practice residency starts.

1976 New SFGH Medical Center opens after three years of planning by community advisory boards.

1979 Specially equipped Burn Unit, San Francisco's second, becomes part of the Trauma Center; Gladstone Foundation Cardiovascular Laboratories open.

1980 Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center established to study basic neuroscience and the effects of alcohol on the brain.

1983 UCSF clinicians and researchers develop the country's first outpatient AIDS clinic and inpatient ward at SFGH and amount an enormous multidisciplinary effort to fight off the disease.

1991 Trauma Center designated the only Level I Trauma Center in San Francisco providing around the clock medical and psychiatric emergency services.

1993 SFGH continues to be recognized as the premier hospital for AIDS care in the United States. The Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology opens at SFGH, second largest basic research institute in the US. In partnership with UCSF, conducts research on new drugs and treatment for HIV/AIDS, along with clinical trials, prevention, outreach, and professional education programs.

2004 Avon Foundation Comprehensive Breast Center open to provide state-of-the-art imaging for breast cancer detection, more than doubling screening capacity and expanding outreach at SFGH.

2008 San Francisco passes a $888 million bond to build a new hospital at SFGH between the historic 1915 red brick buildings. The bond received 84% approval.

2015 The new hospital is slated to be complete.

1917 Graduation

The original photo hangs in Barnett Briggs Library

*Excerpt from "Catastrophes, Epidemics, and Neglected Diseases: San Francisco General Hospital and the Evolution of Public Care" by William Blaisdell, MD and Moses Grossman, MD

PDF of "A Historic Partnership"