View source for Los Angeles General Medical Center

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{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2025}}
{{multiple issues|{{Lead too short|date=May 2023}}
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{{Infobox hospital
| name = Los Angeles General Medical Center
| org_group = [[Los Angeles County Department of Health Services]]
| logo_size = 120px
| image = 
| caption = <!-- optional -->
| logo = Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center Healthcare Network logo.png
| coordinates = {{coord|34.0579|-118.2089|region:US_type:landmark|display=inline,title}}
| location = 2051 Marengo Street<br />[[Boyle Heights, Los Angeles]]
| region = [[Los Angeles County, California|Los Angeles County]]
| state = California
| country = US
| healthcare = Public
| funding = Government
| type = Teaching
| speciality = <!-- if devoted to a specialty, i.e. not if has broad spectrum of specialties -->
| standards = <!-- optional if no national standards -->
| emergency   =[[Trauma center#Level I|Level I Adult Trauma Center]] /<br>[[Trauma center#Pediatric trauma centers|Level II Pediatric Trauma Center]]
| affiliation = [[Keck School of Medicine of USC]]<br>[[United States Navy]]
| beds = 600
| founded = {{start date and age|1878}}
| closed = <!-- optional -->
| website = {{URL|https://dhs.lacounty.gov/lageneral}}
| other_links = <!-- optional -->
}}
'''Los Angeles General Medical Center''' (also known as '''LA General''' and formerly known as '''Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center''', '''County/USC''', '''County General''' or by the abbreviation '''LAC+USC''') is a 600-bed [[public hospital|public]] [[teaching hospital]] located at 2051 Marengo Street in the [[Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles, California|Boyle Heights]] neighborhood of [[Los Angeles]], [[California]], and one of the largest [[academic medical centre|academic medical centers]] in the [[United States]]. The hospital facility is owned by [[Los Angeles County, California|Los Angeles County]] and operated by the [[Los Angeles County Department of Health Services]]. Doctors are faculty of the [[Keck School of Medicine of USC]], who oversee more than 1,000 [[Residency (medicine)|medical residents]] being trained by the faculty.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.usc.edu/schools/medicine/patient_care/hospitals_clinics/lacusc_medical.html |title=Los Angeles County Hospital + USC Medical Center |access-date=2008-07-11 |work=Keck School of Medicine |publisher=University of Southern California |date=2006-02-10 }}</ref> Additionally, the [[United States Navy]] sends [[Navy Medical Service Corps|doctors]], [[United States Navy Nurse Corps|nurses]] and [[Hospital corpsman|corpsmen]] to train at the hospital, working alongside staff in the trauma center.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Becerra |first=Hector |date=March 7, 2003 |title=Navy Medics Get Training From L.A.'s Battlefields |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-mar-07-me-navy7-story.html |access-date=2023-11-29 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}}</ref>

The facility is one of two adult [[Level I trauma center]]s (providing the highest level of surgical care to trauma patients) operated by Los Angeles County; the other is [[Harbor–UCLA Medical Center]].

The hospital was renamed in 2023 to a name resembling its original name, due to confusion with the privately operated [[Keck Hospital of USC]] located a half mile away.

== Operations ==
Los Angeles General Medical Center is one of the largest public [[hospital]]s and medical training centers in the [[United States]], and the largest single provider of [[healthcare]] in [[Los Angeles County]]. It provides healthcare services for the region's medically underserved, is a Level I [[trauma center]] and treats over 28 percent of the region's [[Physical trauma|trauma]] victims (2005). It provides care for half of all [[sickle-cell anemia]] patients and those people living with [[AIDS]] in [[Southern California]].
Los Angeles General Medical Center provides a full spectrum of [[Emergency department|emergency]], [[Hospital#Terminology|inpatient]] and [[Hospital#Terminology|outpatient]] services to all including indigent and Medi-Cal only recipients. These include medical, [[Surgery|surgical]], emergency/trauma, [[Obstetrics|obstetrical]], [[Gynecology|gynecological]] and [[Pediatrics|pediatric]] services as well as [[Psychiatry|psychiatric]] services for adults, adolescents and children.

Los Angeles General Medical Center is one of the busiest public hospitals in the [[Western United States]], with nearly 39,000 inpatients discharged, and one million [[ambulatory care]] patient visits each year. The Emergency Department is one of the world's busiest, with more than 150,000 visits per year.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.saem.org/membership/services/residency-directory?field_state=CA&RecordID=1266|title=Residency Directory|website=www.saem.org}}</ref> LA General operates one of only three [[Burn (injury)|burn]] centers in Los Angeles County and one of the few Level III [[Neonatal]] Intensive Care Units in Southern California. LA General is also the home of the Los Angeles County College of Nursing and Allied Health, which has prepared registered nurses for professional practice since its founding in 1895.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ladhs.org/wps/portal/CollegeOfNursing/ |title=County of Los Angeles – Department of Health Services |publisher=Ladhs.org |access-date=2013-05-31}}</ref>

Los Angeles General Medical Center also serves as the host facility for the Navy Trauma Training Center, allowing uniformed medical professionals valuable exposure to trauma cases during 30 day clinical rotations that prepare them to treat battlefield injury on the front lines with the United States Marine Corps, at sea with the United States Navy, or ashore at Fleet Hospitals and Shock Trauma Platoons.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.med.navy.mil/sites/nmotc/nemti/nttc/Pages/default.aspx |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120921215138/http://www.med.navy.mil/sites/nmotc/nemti/nttc/Pages/default.aspx |url-status=dead |archive-date=September 21, 2012 | title=Navy Medicine Operational Training Center-Navy Trauma Training Center }}</ref>

In 2013, the [[American Cancer Society]] awarded Los Angeles General Medical Center with the Harold P. Freeman Award in recognition of the hospital's achievements to reduce cancer disparities among medically underserved populations.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://file.lacounty.gov/bc/q3_2013/cms1_198529.pdf|title=LAC+USC MEDICAL CENTER AWARDED HAROLD P.FREEMAN AWARD |last=Pinedo|first=Gerardo|date=8 August 2013|work=Department of Health Services|publisher=Los Angeles County|access-date=6 September 2013}}</ref>

== New facility ==
[[File:LAC-USC Medical Center old hospital.jpg|thumb|The old hospital, opened in 1933]]
The original hospital, located at 1200 North State Street, opened in 1933. Designed by the coalition of architects [[Allied Architects Association]], its [[Art Deco architecture|Art-Deco]] construction earned it the nickname the "Great Stone Mother"<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-oe-eckstein27-2008oct27-story.html|title=L.A.'s real General Hospital|last=Eckstein|first=Marc|date=2008-10-27|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|language=en-US|issn=0458-3035|access-date=2016-04-23}}</ref> and had 3,000 patient beds. The [[1994 Northridge earthquake]] on January 17, 1994, renewed concerns about building safety codes, and specifically those for hospitals. The California Hospital Seismic Safety Law was signed into law on September 21, 1994.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.oshpd.ca.gov/fdd/seismic_compliance/SB1953/ |title=Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development – Facilities Development Division (FDD) Seismic Retrofit Program – SB 1953 |website=www.oshpd.ca.gov |access-date=2016-04-23 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006072658/http://www.oshpd.ca.gov/fdd/seismic_compliance/SB1953/ |archive-date=2014-10-06 }}</ref> The new law took the 1200 State Street building out of compliance of earthquake and fire safety codes.

To address the problem, a new modern facility was proposed and constructed nearby, at 2051 Marengo Street. Designed by a joint venture of [[Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum|HOK]] and LBL Associated Architects, the new $1 billion hospital consists of three linked buildings: a clinic tower, a diagnostic and treatment tower, and an inpatient tower, in total supporting 600 patient beds. The new facility has a larger number of [[intensive care]] beds to handle patients in the aftermath of disasters.

The new facility was ready by 2010, and on July 23 of that year, the new hospital was opened. Transfer of all [[Patient|inpatients]] from Women's and Children's Hospital and the 1200 State Street building made the retirement of the original hospital complex official. [[File:LAC+USC Medical Center 2011.jpg|right|thumb|The outpatient clinic of the new hospital, opened July 23, 2010.]]

The old building at 1200 State Street still stands. The Wellness Center, on the first floor of the old building, was opened in 2014.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.thewellnesscenterla.org/#!aboutus/c1n4a|title=The Wellness Center|website=The Wellness Center|access-date=2016-04-23}}</ref> It is open to the public and includes offices for nonprofit organizations, community outreach and classes for wellness activities, a dance studio, a small YMCA on State Street, and extensive new landscaping. While this building no longer meets the California Hospital Seismic Safety Law, it does meet current seismic standards for non-hospital use.

In 2020, the original pediatrics and obstetrics ward was torn down in order to be replaced by affordable housing.{{Citation needed |date=December 2022}}

== History ==
{{expand section|date=June 2025}}
[[File:Los Angeles General Hospital, Los Angeles, California (63781).jpg|thumb|The 1933 building depicted on a postcard]]
[[File:Los Angeles County General Hospital, Los Angeles, California (62698).jpg|thumb|A different angle of the building]]
The origins of Los Angeles’s public hospital system date to the late 19th century, when Los Angeles County opened a 100-bed facility in 1878 on Mission Road to care for the city’s indigent population. That early county hospital — serving dozens of patients with a very small staff and budget — provided the institutional base for what would become the county’s principal public hospital. Just five years after the University of Southern California was founded, USC’s nascent medical school and the County hospital established a formal affiliation in 1885. From that point the County hospital served both as a safety-net provider for the city’s poorest residents and as the principal clinical training site for USC medical students and residents; that teaching relationship is continuous across more than a century of clinical education.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Who We Are |url=https://dhs.lacounty.gov/lageneral/who-we-are/ |access-date=2025-09-07 |website=LA General Medical Center |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=History |url=https://keck.usc.edu/about/history/ |access-date=2025-09-07 |website=About |language=en-US}}</ref>

Through the early 20th century the County hospital expanded as Los Angeles itself grew. By the 1920s–1930s the hospital moved into a monumental Art-Deco complex at 1200 North State Street — a multi-block H-shaped structure designed by a coalition known as the Allied Architects Association. That building, completed in the early 1930s and long known locally as the “Great Stone Mother,” seated thousands of patients and became an architectural and civic landmark in East Los Angeles.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Los Angeles General Medical Center |url=https://www.laconservancy.org/learn/historic-places/los-angeles-countyusc-medical-center/ |access-date=2025-09-07 |website=LA Conservancy |language=en-US}}</ref><ref name=hh>{{Cite web |date=2022-11-27 |title=A new General Hospital: Turning an iconic L.A. landmark into homeless housing |url=https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-11-27/planning-the-rebirth-of-a-mothballed-l-a-landmark |access-date=2025-09-07 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}}</ref>

The hospital’s dual identity — county-run public hospital and USC clinical teaching campus — shaped public health in Los Angeles. Scholarly reviews of the hospital’s century-plus of service document its central role in disaster response, infectious-disease care, and training large numbers of physicians and nurses for the region; historians note recurring tensions and collaborations between county administration and university medicine as both institutions adapted across eras (public-health reform, the Great Depression, post-war expansion, and the rise of modern medical subspecialties).<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Cousineau |first1=Michael R. |last2=Tranquada |first2=Robert E. |date=April 2007 |title=Crisis & commitment: 150 years of service by Los Angeles county public hospitals |journal=American Journal of Public Health |volume=97 |issue=4 |pages=606–615 |doi=10.2105/AJPH.2006.091637 |issn=1541-0048 |pmc=1829364 |pmid=17329642}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Los Angeles General Medical Center, Los Angeles County, California |url=https://www.laalmanac.com/health/he01.php |access-date=2025-09-07 |website=www.laalmanac.com}}</ref>

The 1994 Northridge earthquake prompted statewide seismic-safety legislation for hospitals (SB 1953) and accelerated plans to replace or retrofit older hospital structures. Because the 1930s State Street building could not be economically brought into full compliance as an active acute-care hospital, Los Angeles County and design/construction partners built a modern replacement campus on Marengo Street. The replacement facility — designed by a joint venture led by HOK and LBL and constructed by major contractors — opened in phases in 2008–2010. The new campus was planned both to meet contemporary clinical standards and to function as a disaster-resilient Level I trauma and teaching hospital.<ref>{{Cite web |title=McCarthy-Clark-Hunt Completes LAC + USC Medical Replacement Facility {{!}} Clark Construction |url=https://www.clarkconstruction.com/news/mccarthy-clark-hunt-completes-lac-usc-medical-replacement-facility |access-date=2025-09-07 |website=www.clarkconstruction.com |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=PCAD - County of Los Angeles, General Hospital, 2051 Marengo Street, Northeast Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA |url=https://pcad.lib.washington.edu/building/21035/ |access-date=2025-09-07 |website=pcad.lib.washington.edu}}</ref>

Today’s LA General Medical Center (formerly the LAC+USC Medical Center) sits adjacent to the University of Southern California Health Sciences Campus. That campus clusters USC’s Keck School of Medicine (the region’s first medical school, founded in 1885), the USC School of Pharmacy, Keck Hospital of USC and other specialty centers such as the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. Over the decades the proximity of the county hospital and USC’s health-science schools has created an integrated environment for clinical care, education, and biomedical research: County patients supply a broad, diverse clinical caseload for USC trainees, while USC faculty provide much of the attending-physician staff for residency programs and specialized services.<ref>{{Cite web |title=History |url=https://keck.usc.edu/about/history/ |access-date=2025-09-07 |website=About |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Who We Are |url=https://dhs.lacounty.gov/lageneral/who-we-are/ |access-date=2025-09-07 |website=LA General Medical Center |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-05-03 |title=Los Angeles County + USC Medical Center unveils new name, branding - HSC News |url=https://hscnews.usc.edu/los-angeles-county-usc-medical-center-unveils-new-name-branding |access-date=2025-09-07 |language=en-US}}</ref>

In the 21st century the institutions continue to evolve: the older Art-Deco hospital structure has been the subject of restoration and adaptive-reuse planning (including “Healthy Village” and affordable-housing proposals) while the modern Marengo campus concentrates acute care, trauma, and large residency programs. In 2023 the county and hospital branding was updated to “Los Angeles General Medical Center” (LA General), reflecting both the hospital’s long history and its distinct identity within a dense institutional neighborhood of USC-affiliated hospitals and schools.<ref name=hh/>

== Transportation ==
The [[LA General Medical Center station]] on the [[El Monte Busway]] for the [[J Line (Los Angeles Metro)|Metro J Line]] and [[Foothill Transit]] [[Silver Streak (bus)|Silver Streak]] is located within walking distance from LA General. Additionally, Metro lines 78, 106, 251, 605 serve the hospital.

== Deaths ==
* [[George de Rue Meiklejohn]] (1857–1929).<ref>{{cite news |title=G. Ded R. Meiklejohn Dies at Age 72. Assistant Secretary of War in Administration of President McKinley. Made Poor By Liberality. Couldn't Say 'No' to Those in Distress. Often Tried Court Cases Without a Fee |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E00E4D61F3BEE3ABC4951DFB2668382639EDE |quote=George De Rue Meiklejohn, Assistant Secretary of War under President McKinley and a former Lieutenant Governor and Representative in Congress from Nebraska, who had been decorated by kings, died in a ward of the Los Angeles General Hospital last night. His age was 72. |newspaper=[[New York Times]] |date=April 20, 1929 |access-date=2015-04-19 }}</ref>
* [[Kiko Bejines]] (1962–1983)<ref name=kb>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/05/sports/bejines-is-dead-of-injuries-in-ring.html|title=Bejines Is Dead of Injuries in Ring|agency=Associated Press|work=The New York Times |date=5 September 1983 }}</ref>
* [[Vera-Ellen]] (1921–1981)<ref name=kb/>

== See also ==
* ''[[No más bebés]]''
* ''[[Knocking (2006 film)|Knocking]]'', a documentary on Jehovah's Witnesses, featuring LAC+USC Medical Center
* [[Linda Vista Community Hospital]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
{{Commons category|Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center}}
* [https://dhs.lacounty.gov/lageneral/ Official website]
* [http://gis.oshpd.ca.gov/atlas/places/facility/106191228 This hospital in the CA Healthcare Atlas] A project by OSHPD

{{California Trauma Centers}}
{{Hospitals in the United States}}
{{County of Los Angeles}}
{{University of Southern California}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Los Angeles County Usc Medical Center}}
[[Category:Hospitals in Los Angeles]]<!--physical location-->
[[Category:Hospitals in Los Angeles County, California]]<!--LA County hospital-->
[[Category:County hospitals in California]]
[[Category:Teaching hospitals in California]]
[[Category:Keck School of Medicine of USC]]
[[Category:Skyscrapers in Los Angeles]]
[[Category:University of Southern California buildings and structures]]
[[Category:Hospitals established in 1878]]
[[Category:1878 establishments in California]]
[[Category:Hospital buildings completed in 1933]]
[[Category:Hospital buildings completed in 2010]]
[[Category:Schools of the University of Southern California|Medical]]
[[Category:Healthcare in Los Angeles]]
[[Category:Boyle Heights, Los Angeles]]
[[Category:Art Deco architecture in California]]
[[Category:Trauma centers]]
[[Category:Allied Architects Association buildings]]
[[Category:Public hospitals in the United States]]
[[Category:Abandoned hospitals in the United States]]