Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana was founded on May 10, 1736. French sailor and shipbuilder Jean Louis bequeathed the funds for this new hospital that would serve the City’s poor.

Originally named the Hospital of Saint John or L’Hôpital des Pauvres de la Charité (Hospital for the Poor), the hospital was built in the French Quarter. By 1743, Charity Hospital had outgrown its original location, and a second hospital was built on Basin Street. In 1785 a third hospital was built (and renamed at the time San Carlos Hospital). … Read more →

A psychiatric hospital built in 1874 and opened in 1878, Danvers State Hospital was located on an isolated, multi-acre site in a remote part of Massachusetts. Danvers is alleged to be the birthplace of the pre-frontal lobotomy.

Danvers was built around the Kirkbride Plan, a series of state mental hospitals constructed with the idea that psychiatric patients should be housed in more humane accommodations. The typical Kirkbride floor plan was meant to promote privacy and comfort for patients, and the buildings were designed to have a curative effect. These institutions were typically large, Victorian style buildings on large, remote properties. Most of the buildings at Danvers State Hospital were joined by an underground labyrinth of tunnels (generally due to the winter conditions in the area). … Read more →

Calexico Hospital was one of California’s smallest hospitals in one of the state’s most economically depressed communities. After 47 years of service, the 34-bed facility closed in October 1998, leaving the Imperial Valley border town of 24,000 without a hospital.

The governing body of the hospital surrendered the hospital license to the Department of Health Services (“DHS”, now the California Department of Public Health), a preemptive decision as the Hospital’s license was about to be revoked. The DHS cited repeated violations of state health codes involving record keeping, cleanliness, and training of personnel.  Before the Hospital closed, Medicare and Medi-Cal decertified the Hospital. … Read more →

One day in 1849, four nuns rented a building at West 13th Street and 7th Avenue in New York City. These nuns had recently been dispatched from the Sisters of Charity in Maryland, an order inspired by the Daughters of Charity (a religious congregation founded in the seventeenth century by French priest St. Vincent de Paul).

The nuns brought in 30 beds to treat the city’s sick. Named after St. Vincent de Paul, St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan was founded that year as a hospital to treat not only the sick, but also the poor and disadvantaged. … Read more →

A trauma center is a type of hospital with the necessary resources and equipment to treat severely injured patients. The American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma classifies trauma centers as Level I to Level IV (Level I is the highest level of care).

Trauma centers in the United States are an integral part of the emergency health care delivery system, ensuring that millions of people injured each year receive the necessary and appropriate treatment.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), injuries are the leading cause of death for children and adults ages 1–44. The leading causes of trauma are motor vehicle accidents, falls, and assaults. According to the University of California at San Diego Health Center, a trauma occurs every four seconds, and the total direct and indirect cost of trauma in the United States exceeds $133 billion annually. … Read more →

“The future influences the present just as much as the past.” — Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

One of the goals of Hospital Stay is to familiarize individuals with many of the processes and procedures involved in health care today. With that in mind, there are many opportunities to learn from past health care practices, especially as we create the roadmap to where our system stands in modern times.

A new series by Not So Much Foundation called “Lost Hospital” focuses in part on the health care institutions of yesterday. Featured here is Linda Vista Community Hospital, formerly located on St. Louis Street in Los Angeles, California (Boyle Heights).

The hospital was first built in 1904 (originally named Santa Fe Coastlines Hospital) for Santa Fe Railroad employees. In its early days the hospital did well, much like the Boyle Heights neighborhood around it. In 1924, the Hospital expanded to accomodate an increased patient census. In 1937, the Hospital changed its name to Linda Vista Community Hospital. … Read more →

A new study from Concordia University concludes that the length between a man’s second and fourth finger indicates higher levels of prenatal testosterone, risk-taking, and potential financial success. These findings, published in the journal of Personality and Individual Differences, suggest that men with such physical characteristics (also known as “alpha males”) may take greater risks in relationships, in athletic competitions, and in financial investments.

According to Gad Saad, Concordia University Research Chair in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences and Darwinian Consumption: “Previous studies have linked high testosterone levels with risky behaviour and financial success. We investigated the relationship between prenatal testosterone and various risk proclivities. Our findings show an association between high testosterone and risk-taking among males in three domains: recreational, social and financial.” … Read more →

Google has launched a link-up with Samaritans, a confidential emotional support service for anyone in the UK and Ireland, displaying the charity’s helpline number in response to UK search queries relating to suicide.

Any individual who enters the word “suicide” or the phrase “commit suicide” will now see a red telephone icon at the top of their search results. This icon includes contact details for Samaritans. … Read more →

Researchers at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio, concluded that teenagers who text over 120 times a day are more likely to have had sex or to have used drugs or alcohol than kids who don’t send as many messages.

Dr. Scott Frank, an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Case Western Reserve, studied teenagers who engaged in “hyper-texting” (sending more than 120 text messages per school day) and/or “hyper-networking” (spending more than three hours on social networking sites during a school day) in a Midwest, urban county in the United States. … Read more →