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John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County
Cook County Health and Hospital System
Cook County Hospital before 1911
Geography
Location	Illinois Medical District, Chicago, Illinois, United States
Coordinates	41°52′20″N 87°40′29″W / 41.87222°N 87.67472°W / 41.87222; -87.67472
Organization
Care system	Public hospital
Type	Teaching hospital
Affiliated university	Rush Medical College
Services
Emergency department	Level I trauma center
Beds	464
Public transit access	CTA  Blue   Pink
History
Opened	1834; 190 years ago (1834)
Links
Website	cookcountyhealth.org/locations/john-h-stroger-jr-hospital-of-cook-county/
Lists	Hospitals in Illinois
Cook County Hospital
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Area	less than one acre
Built	1912
Architect	Gerhardt, Paul Sr.; Griffiths, John, & Sons
Architectural style	Beaux Arts
NRHP reference No.	06001017
Added to NRHP	November 8, 2006

The John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County (shortened Stroger Hospital, formerly Cook County Hospital) is a public hospital in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is part of the Cook County Health and Hospital System, along with Provident Hospital of Cook County and several related centers, which provides public primary, specialty, and tertiary healthcare services to residents of Cook County, Illinois.

Cook County Hospital was founded 1832, and became an innovative teaching hospital. In 2001–2002, it moved into new quarters adjacent to its historic Beaux-Arts complex in the Illinois Medical District and was renamed for hospital board president John Stroger Jr.

Facility and location

Stroger employs 300 attending physicians and over 400 fellows and residents. It has 1.2 million square feet (110,000 m) of floor space, and 464 beds. It is located at 1901 W. Harrison Street, and is a part of the 305 acre (1.2 km) Illinois Medical District on Chicago's West Side, which is one of the largest concentrations of medical facilities in the world.

History

Cook County Hospital, which opened in 1857, was used as a teaching hospital by Rush Medical School until the Civil War, when it was transitioned to an army hospital. After the war, it continued its purpose as a center for medical education and founded the first medical internship in the country in 1866.

By the 1900s, the hospital was overseen by surgeons and physicians in Chicago who volunteered their services at the hospital, which was rebuilt in 1916. Regarded as one of the world's greatest teaching hospitals, many interns, residents, and graduate physicians came to see the medical and surgical advances. Innovations included the world's first blood bank and surgical fixation of fractures. In the 1930s, Dr. Bernard Fantus, after finding ways to lengthen the preservation of blood outside the body, invented and opened the world's first blood bank, the Cook County Hospital Blood Bank. In the early 1960s, William Shoemaker, a student of the famed surgical physiologist, Francis Daniels Moore, spearheaded surgical critical care when he organized the first Burn and Trauma Unit.

In 1986, Agnes D. Lattimer was appointed medical director of Cook County Hospital, making her the first black woman to serve as medical director of a major American hospital.

Cook County Hospital was renamed for John H. Stroger Jr., the then-president of the Cook County Board, in 2001.

The new Cook County (Stroger) Hospital was opened in December 2002, and is housed in a facility located adjacent to the old hospital building.

The former Cook County Hospital building was renovated and reopened as a privately funded mixed use development, and Hyatt Hotel.

In popular culture

• County General Hospital, a fictional hospital that served as the setting for the NBC serial medical drama ER, was loosely based on Cook County Hospital; in the first episode a patient refers to the hospital as "Cook County General" during a cognitive test.
• Cook County Hospital is also used in the 1993 movie The Fugitive.
• The documentary I Call It Murder aired on the BBC television show Man Alive in 1979, which reported on the challenges facing the staff at Cook County Hospital. At that time, the hospital was one of the few free hospitals in the United States.
• In 1996, Diana, Princess of Wales visited patients and doctors in the AIDS ward and trauma center, while on a tour of Chicago.
• In the book series The Dresden Files, Stroger Hospital is mentioned by name and is a setting for various scenes across several books.

References

1. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: John H Stroger Junior Hospital of Cook County
2. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
3. "About Us". John H. Stroger, Jr., Hospital of Cook County. Cook County Health & Hospitals System. Archived from the original on February 18, 2019. Retrieved December 3, 2016.
4. "Cook County Hospital". www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org. Retrieved September 8, 2017.
5. Eschner, Kat (March 15, 2017). "The First-Ever Blood Bank Opened 80 Years Ago Today". Smithsonian Magazine.
6. "Jet Magazine". Johnson Publishing Company. February 24, 1986. Retrieved February 13, 2019.
7. Becker, Robert (December 19, 2001). "Hospital has new name: Stroger". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved April 6, 2019.
8. "Cook County Hospital Central Campus Redevelopment". www.cookcountyil.gov. Retrieved February 20, 2019.
9. "Vacant For Decades, Old Cook County Hospital Transforms Into Hyatt Hotel". Block Club Chicago. July 29, 2020. Retrieved February 2, 2022.
10. "I Call it Murder | The Progress". progressivepupil.wordpress.com. Retrieved September 8, 2017.
11. Thayer, Kate (June 3, 2016). "20 years ago this weekend, Princess Diana wowed Chicago in Northwestern purple". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved January 18, 2018.

External links

• Official website

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