Timeline

1847

• State University of Iowa is founded on February 25.

1868

• State legislature approves a plan for medical training on UI campus.

1870

• UI Medical Department holds its first classes. With 10 women in the first class, it is the nation’s first co-educational medical school.

1898

• A $55,000, 50-bed University Hospital opens in a three-story brick building on the east side of the Iowa River (now Seashore Hall), replacing sparse facilities in the Mechanics Academy.

1904

• State creates University Hygienic Laboratory at UI to study development of infectious diseases such as diphtheria, typhoid, tuberculosis and rabies.

1907

• University Hospital adds a large new wing.

1908

• Tuberculosis Sanitorium constructed on the Oakdale Campus. While it provides patient care and is a teaching site, it does not become a part of University Hospitals until decades later.

1910

• The Flexner Report (an evaluation of medical education in the United States and Canada) recommends that the UI College of Medicine and University Hospital change or shut down.

1913/1914

• University Hospital adds two more wings, bringing capacity to 350 beds.

1915

• The Iowa Legislature passes the Perkins Act, which provides that a child suffering from a curable ailment whose parents cannot afford to pay for proper treatment can be taken to University Hospital at state expense.

1919

• 150-bed Children’s Hospital opens on land acquired by UI for development of a medical campus on the west side of the Iowa River.
• The Haskell-Klaus Act extends state-paid care to all poor children and adults, solidifying University Hospitals’ role as the health service provider for the entire state.

1920

• Psychopathic Hospital for people with mental diseases opens on west side medical campus.

1921

• Westlawn opens as a dormitory for nurses on west side medical campus.

1922

• UI receives $2.25 million from the Rockefeller Foundation, along with state matching funds, to build a new University Hospital on the west campus. The new facility is needed  to handle dramatic increases in admissions resulting from passage of Iowa's indigent care laws.

1928

• The seven story, 735-bed General Hospital--one of the largest in the nation--opens.

1932

• Statewide ambulance service begins transporting patients to University Hospital from around the state, and back to their homes.

1936

• UI establishes Iowa State Services for Crippled Children as a public service unit.

1939

• Investigators, lead by Dr. Elmer L. DeGowin, develop modern-day blood banking, demonstrating that it is safe to refrigerate, ship and use banked blood.

1947

• Newly organized Iowa Hospital-School for Severely Handicapped Children begins serving disabled children in the basement of the Westlawn Building. The initial enrollment of 8 swells to 20 by end of the first year.

1950s

• In 1950, University Hospitals admits 560 polio patients; by 1952, the number swells to 660. At the epidemic’s height, the hospital needs to use not only patient care units for polio patients, but also many other areas, including an operating room, sterilizing room, the library, hallways, and in summer, tents on the lawn.

1951

• UI Hospitals and Clinics establishes its first cardiac catheterization laboratory.

1952

• 300-bed Veterans Administration Hospital opens in Iowa City.

1952

• UI establishes first cryobank for frozen semen. The next year, the first child conceived with sperm stored in this manner is born at UI Hospitals and Clinics.

1953

• UI Hospitals and Clinics begins using hypothermia technique for open heart surgery.

1955

• Iowa Hospital-School program moves into a new building known as University Hospital School for Severely Handicapped Children.
• Ophthalmologists perform UI Hospitals and Clinics’ first cornea transplant.
• Johann Ehrenhaft, M.D., and staff build a heart-lung machine able to circulate, oxygenate, and filter the blood of heart surgery patients. The machine is used for the first time on June 22, 1956, to benefit a five-year-old girl.

1955

• UI establishes world’s first Institute of Agricultural Medicine and Occupational Health. Today, researchers from many UI specialties are studying problems on the farm and in the workplace.

1960

• "Iowa Hospital-School" is renamed University Hospital School, and begins serving children with mental as well as physical disabilities.

1961

• College of Medicine establishes Clinical Research Center to promote interdisciplinary research and encourage scientific clinical investigation.

1962

• Alson Braley, MD, then head of the Department of Ophthalmology, founds the Eye Bank Network, a group of amateur radio operators who meet on the air twice a day to help the nation’s ophthalmologists obtain donor eyes.

1964

• Chronic hemodialysis program (located at VA Hospital) begins serving UI Hospitals and Clinics and VA patients.

1968

• UI Hospitals and Clinics transforms a former bread delivery truck into its first Neonatal Transport van.
• College of Medicine organizes the Iowa Regional Medical Program to unite scientific research, medical education, and medical care for the benefit of Iowa physicians.

1969

• Surgeons perform UI Hospitals and Clinics’ first kidney transplant.
• UI Hospitals and Clinics ophthalmologists perform the first laser surgery for eye diseases in Iowa.

1970

• Drs. Mark Armstrong and William Conners demonstrate for the first time that reduction of blood cholesterol produced improvement in atherosclerotic plaques.

1972-73

• As part of a commitment to provide personal services to patients and families, UI Hospitals and Clinics establishes Patient Representative Program (1972) and Volunteer Program (1973).

1974

• With groundbreaking for the North Tower addition, UI Hospitals and Clinics begins a phased $548 million  program to replace outdated patient care facilities.

1975

• UI Hospitals and Clinics establishes state’s first Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
• National Institutes of Health funds an Interdisciplinary Cardiovascular Research Training Program to be administered by the UI Cardiovascular Research Center.

1976

• North Tower (later renamed Boyd Tower) opens.

1977

• Iowa Lions Cornea Center opens.

1978-1988

• Phased development of the Roy J. Carver Pavilion.

1979

• UI Hospitals and Clinics initiates Air Care helicopter service.
• First UI Hospitals and Clinics pancreas transplant.

1980-1992

• Phased development of the John W. Colloton Pavilion at UI Hospitals and Clinics.

1980

• UI Hospitals and Clinics’ first bone marrow transplant procedure performed.
• Edward Mason, MD, and associates develop the most common surgical treatment for severe obesity, Vertical Banded Gastroplasty.

1981

• UI Hospitals and Clinics’ first unrelated bone marrow transplant procedure performed.

1982

• UI Hospitals and Clinics otolaryngologists are first in the United States to implant a multichannel cochlear implant.

1983

• Children’s Hospital named after the late Arthur Steindler, MD, who dedicated his life to caring for Iowa’s pediatric orthopaedic patients.

1984

• UI Hospitals and Clinics opens Magnetic Resonance Imaging Center, a major advance in diagnostic imaging.

First Children’s Miracle Network Telethon at UI Hospitals and Clinics.

1985

• UI Hospitals and Clinics surgeons perform state’s first adult heart transplant.
• First UI Hospitals and Clinics liver transplant.
• Ronald McDonald House opens as a “home away from home” for the families of pediatric patients receiving health care at UI Hospitals and Clinics.
• James Clifton Center for Digestive Diseases opens. It is the first multidisciplinary subspecialty unit at UI Hospitals and Clinics and one of the first nationwide.

1987-2000

• Development of the John Pappajohn Pavilion at UI Hospitals and Clinics.

1987

• Seven-day-old infant is first child to receive a heart transplant at UI Hospitals and Clinics.
• Three-year-old boy receives first cochlear implant designed for children.
• UI Hospitals and Clinics’ 10,000th open heart procedure.

1988

• First UI Hospitals and Clinics hyperbaric chamber opens.

1990

• UI Hospitals and Clinics ranks highly in the very first “Best Hospitals in America” listing by U.SNews and World Report. High annual rankings continue through the current year.
• UI Cancer Center establishes a nationwide Cancer Information Service.

1991

• UI Hospitals and Clinics opens the state’s only Positron Emission Tomography unit, a powerful tool for providing images of the brain, heart, and other organs.

1992-2001

• Development of the Pomerantz Family Pavilion. Department of Ophthalmology’s Eye Institute first occupant in February 1996.

1993

• UI Hospitals and Clinics’ first pediatric liver transplant.
• John and Mary Pappajohn Clinical Cancer Center opens at UI Hospitals and Clinics, consolidating multidisciplinary cancer care specialties into contemporary facilities.
• UI College of Medicine researchers Drs. Joseph Zabner and Michael Welsh develop first successful, although temporary, gene therapy for correction of the defect in cystic fibrosis.

1994

• UI becomes a national leader in the emerging field of telemedicine when federal grant establishes UI National Laboratory for the Study of Rural Telemedicine.
• UI neuroscience researchers shed valuable new light on which parts of the brain perform rational decision-making and process emotion.

1995

• UI Hospitals and Clinics’ first living-related liver transplant.
• Pediatricians and surgeons at UI Hospitals and Clinics begin providing extracorporeal membrane oxygenation to neonates, infants, and adults with impaired lung function.

1996

• UI Hospitals and Clinics’ first auditory brain stem implant.
• UI neuroscientists identify new areas responsible for word finding.

1997

• UI establishes Center for Macular Degeneration--the first of its kind in the United States--to provide patient care while researching more effective treatments and possible prevention of the disease.
• UI Hospitals and Clinics establishes the University of Iowa Children's Hospital, reclaiming the heritage of excellence in children’s health care first established at the UI in 1919.
• 1,000th adult bone marrow transplantation at UI Hospitals and Clinics.

1998

• University of Iowa Family Care Center opens in the Pomerantz Family Pavilion at UI Hospitals and Clinics, providing primary care clinics staffed by specialists in Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, and Pediatrics.
• UI Hospitals and Clinics certified as a Level I Trauma Center with pediatric commitment--the first and only hospital in Iowa to achieve this highest level of designation from the American College of Surgeons.
• Hospital centennial celebration.

1999

• First communications campaign features a new identity for the partnership between UI Hospitals and Clinics and the UI College of Medicine: University of Iowa Health Care. The campaign’s theme is Changing Medicine. Changing Lives.®
• UI brain experts find conclusive signs of different brain activity in introverts and extroverts.
• UI physicians announce the availability of a breakthrough treatment for epilepsy.

2000

• Innovative features make a new Otolaryngology Institute at UI Hospitals and Clinics one of the most advanced ear, nose, and throat care facilities in the world.
• A $25 million gift from the Holden family of Williamsburg, Iowa, provides unprecedented support for cancer research, education, and treatment at UI.
• Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center earns the National Cancer Institute’s highest designation--comprehensive status--a prestigious designation of excellence.

2001

• UI Health Care researchers launch the nation's first clinical trial of an adenovirus-prostate-specific antigen vaccine for prostate cancer patients.
• An 8-pound Iowa infant becomes one of the smallest persons in the world to receive a liver transplant following a procedure at University of Iowa Children's Hospital.
• An Iowa woman with a congenital heart defect becomes the first patient at UI Hospitals and Clinics to receive a new pacemaker that prevents both slow and fast heart rates.

2002

• A time capsule commemorating 100 years of UI Hospitals and Clinics history is sealed within a granite pillar outside the John W. Colloton Pavilion.
• In recognition of $90 million in total support, the UI College of Medicine is named after the late Roy J. Carver and his widow Lucille A. Carver.
• UI Hospitals and Clinics surgeons help pioneer robotic surgery

2003

• 49-year-old Illinois man becomes the 2,500th patient to receive a kidney transplant at UI Hospitals and Clinics
• UI Hospitals and Clinics, in conjunction with partner St. Luke’s Hospital, Cedar Rapids, receives approval to begin training resident physicians in emergency medicine

2004

• UI Hospitals and Clinics becomes first hospital in Iowa to receive the prestigious Magnet Award for Nursing Excellence
• UI Hospitals and Clinics opens a new UI Maternity Center, including sophisticated new neonatal and pediatric intensive care units at University of Iowa Children's Hospital
• The first class of physicians in Iowa's only residency training program in emergency medicine begin their studies at UI Hospitals and Clinics

2005

• UI researchers lead the largest clinical trial for tinnitus (‘ringing in the ears’) ever funded by the government
• At 5.6 pounds, an Iowa infant becomes the smallest patient ever to receive robotic surgery in a procedure performed at University of Iowa Children's Hospital
• New, highly advanced Center of Excellence in Image-Guided Radiation Therapy opens