St. Mary's is San Francisco's first hospital. We have been in continuous operation since the days of the gold rush, when 25-year-old Sister Mary Russell Baptist led a group of seven young Sisters of Mercy nuns from County Cork, Ireland to San Francisco's Barbary Coast. Sailing through the Golden Gate in December 1854, the sisters found a booming town of 35,000 with a distinctly frontier edge: squatter's camps, bawdyhouses, unpaved streets, and no public health regulations. The sisters had their work cut out for them. The City was regularly ravaged by epidemics, and among their first efforts was providing 24-hour care in a makeshift tent hospital during the deadly outbreak of cholera in early 1855.
Moving out of the tents and into a building on Stockton Street, St. Mary's Hospital officially opened its doors in 1857. The medical staff included Dr. Beverly Cole, founder of the University of California San Francisco and a future president of the AMA, and Dr. Levi Cooper Lane, the West's premier surgeon and founder of Stanford Medical School. The first head of educational programs at St. Mary's, Dr. James Whitney, invited students from Dr. Lane's medical school to follow him on visiting rounds. In those early days, St. Mary's had a daily patient census of about 35, served by two attending physicians, two pharmacists, and 20 nursing sisters. St. Mary's Stockton Street site was superseded in 1861 by an elegant new structure on Rincon Hill, the site of which is now under the western approach to the Bay Bridge. This cutting-edge facility had, as Mother Russell marveled in a letter to Ireland, "every convenience that could be imagined: electric bells and lights, speaking tubes, a passenger elevator, chutes for soiled linen and two antiseptic operating rooms, so constructed that the whole room can be hosed out, the water flowing off and down a marble gutter." Mother Mary Russell served the City long and well, earning her the nickname "Mother of San Francisco." She died in 1898.
In 1906 an earthquake so violent that seismographic instruments could not record its magnitude reduced much of San Francisco to rubble and triggered a fire that raged for three days. St. Mary's Hospital was completely destroyed, but every one of its 150 patients was saved. The hospital was rebuilt in 1911 at a new site at the edge of Golden Gate Park. The new facility included the City's most extensive privately operated clinics for those unable to pay for medical care. These clinics are still in service today. The present modern inpatient facility at 450 Stanyan Street opened in 1974. In 1997, St. Mary's Medical Center celebrated 140 years of service to San Francisco and the Bay Area. The practice of medicine and delivery of health care have seen radical changes since Mother Russell's time, but St. Mary's commitment to excellence in patient care and medical education remains constant. Our tradition of advocacy and service to the medically undeserved is reflected in the nearly $17 million in charity care and community benefits provided annually by St. Mary's Medical Center, well over 10% of our operating budget.
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St. Mary's is San Francisco's first hospital. We have been in continuous operation since the days of the gold rush, when 25-year-old Sister Mary Russell Baptist led a group of seven young Sisters of Mercy nuns from County Cork, Ireland to San Francisco's Barbary Coast. Sailing through the Golden Gate in December 1854, the sisters found a booming town of 35,000 with a distinctly frontier edge: squatter's camps, bawdyhouses, unpaved streets, and no public health regulations. The sisters had their work cut out for them. The City was regularly ravaged by epidemics, and among their first efforts was providing 24-hour care in a makeshift tent hospital during the deadly outbreak of cholera in early 1855.
Moving out of the tents and into a building on Stockton Street, St. Mary's Hospital officially opened its doors in 1857. The medical staff included Dr. Beverly Cole, founder of the University of California San Francisco and a future president of the AMA, and Dr. Levi Cooper Lane, the West's premier surgeon and founder of Stanford Medical School. The first head of educational programs at St. Mary's, Dr. James Whitney, invited students from Dr. Lane's medical school to follow him on visiting rounds. In those early days, St. Mary's had a daily patient census of about 35, served by two attending physicians, two pharmacists, and 20 nursing sisters. St. Mary's Stockton Street site was superseded in 1861 by an elegant new structure on Rincon Hill, the site of which is now under the western approach to the Bay Bridge. This cutting-edge facility had, as Mother Russell marveled in a letter to Ireland, "every convenience that could be imagined: electric bells and lights, speaking tubes, a passenger elevator, chutes for soiled linen and two antiseptic operating rooms, so constructed that the whole room can be hosed out, the water flowing off and down a marble gutter." Mother Mary Russell served the City long and well, earning her the nickname "Mother of San Francisco." She died in 1898. 
In 1906 an earthquake so violent that seismographic instruments could not record its magnitude reduced much of San Francisco to rubble and triggered a fire that raged for three days. St. Mary's Hospital was completely destroyed, but every one of its 150 patients was saved. The hospital was rebuilt in 1911 at a new site at the edge of Golden Gate Park. 
The new facility included the City's most extensive privately operated clinics for those unable to pay for medical care. These clinics are still in service today. The present modern inpatient facility at 450 Stanyan Street opened in 1974. In 1997, St. Mary's Medical Center celebrated 140 years of service to San Francisco and the Bay Area. The practice of medicine and delivery of health care have seen radical changes since Mother Russell's time, but St. Mary's commitment to excellence in patient care and medical education remains constant. Our tradition of advocacy and service to the medically undeserved is reflected in the nearly $17 million in charity care and community benefits provided annually by St. Mary's Medical Center, well over 10% of our operating budget.