History of Harbor-UCLA Emergency Medicine

For over forty years, the residents of the Harbor-UCLA Emergency Medicine Residency Program have played an integral role in delivering care to the largely underserved communities of south Los Angeles County. Harbor General Hospital was purchased by the County of Los Angeles from the United States Army in 1946, and the current 8-story structure was built in 1962. The Emergency Medicine Residency Program was established in 1978 as one of the first emergency medicine training programs in the country. In that same year, the hospital was rebranded as Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. The structure also hosted the first hospital-based paramedic training program in the nation. In 2013, the new Surgery Emergency Building was completed, which included a new emergency department, operating rooms, hospital entrance, and atrium.

• 

Today Harbor-UCLA Medical Center is a 72-acre facility with an 8-story, 553-bed hospital and a 52,000 square foot Primary Care and Diagnostic Center, serving more than 700,000 residents in the greater South Bay community. The Surgery Emergency Building added 190,300 square feet of space, with 16 operating rooms and a high-volume, high-acuity Emergency Department that is the only Level 1 Trauma Center, Pediatric Trauma Center, Pediatric Critical Medical Center, Disaster Resource Center, Stroke Center, Academic STEMI Receiving Center, and Nursing and Paramedic Training Center in the South Bay of Los Angeles. Harbor-UCLA Medical Center has approximately 300 full-time faculty and nearly 450 residents and fellows in training. We look forward to the completion of our new hospital building by the year 2028 to further provide state-of-the-art care for our patients.

Some fun facts about Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and the Department of Emergency Medicine:

• Harbor’s first inpatient was a trauma victim of a plane crash (1946), and survived.
• Harbor was the nation’s first hospital-based paramedic training program (1969).
• The popular television show “Emergency!” (1972-1977) was filmed at Harbor.
• Dr. Marianne Gausche-Hill was the nation’s first emergency medicine residency-trained PEM fellow.
• Dr. Robert S. Hockberger (Chair Emeritus) and Dr. Marianne Gausche-Hill are the Senior Editors of Rosen’s Emergency Medicine.
• Dr. Amy Kaji is the President of SAEM.
• Harbor-UCLA Emergency Medicine Residents won ACEP Sim Wars three years in a row (2014-2016).