DAYBREAK - SFGH History Now in a Book

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1st appeared 23 September 1999

SFGH History Now in a Book

One hundred and fifty years ago the forty-niners came to California, the sleepy village of Yerba Buena became San Francisco and just a scant few years later the San Francisco Hospital was born. This City institution, which in time became San Francisco General Hospital, has had a wonderfully rich and colorful history paralleling that of our city.

book cover So reads the introduction to a new book on the history of San Francisco General Hospital written by former SFGH physicians F. William Blaisdell and Moses Grossman. The authors will present "Catastrophes, Epidemics and Disasters: San Francisco General Hospital and the Evolution of Public Care" as well as sign copies of the book at a special grand rounds at SFGH on Friday, September 24, noon, Carr Auditorium, 22nd Street at San Bruno Ave.

Chapters in the book cover topics from "Death and Disease and the Forty Niners," to the "White Plague" (tuberculosis) and "Red Plague" (STDs) to "AIDS and the San Francisco General Hospital."

"The development of public care in San Francisco is intimately related to the history of California and the development of medical practice in the State," write the authors. "[SFGH] can rightly claim to be the most outstanding public hospital in the United States."

Some of the many fascinating tidbits gleaned from the book are:

The hospital was the first training site for female nurses in the West and it developed the first nursing school in California;

The hospital served as a national model for responding to "trauma epidemics" such as the violence and drug use resulting from the "hippie movement in the Haight Ashbury area and the Viet Nam War";

SFGH first recognized the AIDS epidemic, opened the first AIDS ward and is currently the country's acknowledged leader in the care of this disease;

The hospital developed the first blood bank in the western US;

Until 1966, SFGH was the sole provider of emergency care in San Francisco.

Grossman, who is an emeritus UCSF faculty member, has been associated with SFGH since 1960 and served until 1992 as Chief of Pediatrics and Infectious Disease. He was Associate Dean for SFGH from 1964 to 1974 and is still active on the teaching staff.

Grossman, perhaps more than any other person, has seen, experienced, and shaped much of the change at the hospital over the past five decades. He has worked diligently to create a medical and social service net for San Francisco's abused children.

Blaisdell first entered SFGH as a medical student in 1948, and took most of his surgical training there between 1955 and 1959, and returned as Chief of the Surgical service, serving from 1966 to 1978.

Books will be available for purchase on September 24. Call the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation at 206-4478 for additional information or book purchases.