The redesigned Hospital entrance and the wall of glass. Courtesy of Marketing Communications.

The University of Virginia Health System’s longstanding vision to benefit human health and improve quality of life is nowhere more immediately obvious than in the buildings constructed since the beginning of the twenty-first century. The stunning new facilities support the various missions of the academic medical center: patient care, teaching, and research.

In 2004 a four-story structure with 14 new operating rooms significantly increased the hospital’s surgical capacity. Work was completed in 2012 on the front of the hospital, featuring a glazed curtain wall system to maximize natural light for the 72 additional private patient rooms.

Each floor in the Cancer Center is designed to create a warm, supportive, and inviting environment. Courtesy of photographer Luca DiCecco and UVA Medical Alumni Association.

The new Battle Building at the University of Virginia’s Children’s Hospital. Photo courtesy of UVA Health System Marketing.

The growth of the Health System extends beyond the vicinity of the main hospital. Multiple outpatient clinics relocated to a new building at the Fontaine Research Park less than two miles from the Medical Center. A 40-bed Transitional Care Hospital, the area’s first long-term acute care hospital, is west of town at the Northridge Medical Park and was dedicated in 2010 for patients with complex medical conditions requiring an extended hospital stay. UVA Medical Park Zion Crossroads opened in 2013, and a number of other established practices were purchased and added to the Health System including ones focusing on cancer, arthritis, and primary care.

The Office of Telemedicine

The Office of Telemedicine. Courtesy of Marketing Communications.

University of Virginia Service to the Community

Remote Area Medical Clinic. Courtesy of Marketing Communications.

Pegasus and EpicCare

Pegasus is the Health System’s hospital-based air and ground transport service for critically ill or injured patients. The transport team includes pilots, nurses, and a variety of emergency medical personnel who move about 6,500 patients a year by ambulance and helicopter. Pegasus Air averages approximately 50 flights a month and now lands on the hospital roof helipad to provide a faster, more direct route to the Heart Center.

The Health System launched EpicCare, an electronic medical records system, in more than 140 outpatient clinics across Central Virginia in 2010. In addition to making it easier for clinicians to access patient records, patients can view their own information through MyChart. More than 1.8 million medical record numbers with 3.3 million radiology results, 18 million document images, and 30 million laboratory test results were painstakingly moved from old patient records to the new system. Inpatient areas began using the system in 2011.

Hospital Technology

The TomoHD therapy system delivers precisely targeted radiation treatments and preserves more healthy tissue. Courtesy of photographer Luca DiCecco and UVA Medical Alumni Association.

The da Vinci Surgical System allows incisions to be extremely small which leads to less overall recovery time. Courtesy of Marketing Communications.

Medical Research

Barry James Marshall, 2005 Nobel Prize winner. Courtesy of the Office of the Nobel Laureates – University of Western Australia.

Significant gains in research space were made in the first part of the twenty-first century. Development at the 54-acre Fontaine Research Park started in the mid-1990s. It is home to the Gerald D. Aurbach Medical Research Building which was finished in 2001 and houses both laboratory and clinical facilities of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism. The Sheridan G. Snyder Translational Research Building completed the development at Fontaine in 2008 and provides space for scientists who seek to speed the time of taking discoveries in the lab to actual improvement in patient care. It also provides a setting that fosters interdisciplinary research groups. Closer to the Hospital, the Carter-Harrison Research Building (MR-6) opened in 2009 to provide a home to several hundred investigators in cancer, immunology, vaccine therapy, allergy, infectious diseases, and global health.

Barry James Marshall with his long-time collaborator, J. Robin Warren, won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2005 for his discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease. An Australian, Marshall did much of his work in that country, but spent ten years at the University of Virginia where he was able to extend his research, especially in diagnostics and treatment. He was on the University of Virginia School of Medicine’s faculty as a Professor of Research in Internal Medicine as well as a Clinical Professor of Microbiology at the University of Western Australia when he was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Education at the University of Virginia Health System

The Claude Moore Nursing Education Building. Courtesy of Marketing Communications.

The Claude Moore Medical Education Building. Courtesy of CO Architects; Robert Canfield Photography.

Medical students with birthing and neonatal simulators in the Medical Simulation Center. Courtesy of photographer Luca DiCecco and the UVA Medical Alumni Association.

R. Edward Howell

R. Edward Howell. Courtesy of Marketing Communications.

An aerial view of the buildings constructed south of Jefferson Park Avenue. Courtesy of Marketing Communications.

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This exhibition was prepared by Hal Sharp and Janet Pearson of the Department of Historical Collections and Services, The Claude Moore Health Sciences Library.

For permission to reproduce any of the text or images owned by Historical Collections and Services or to make comments or suggestions, please contact a member of Historical Collections.

Introduction: The University of Virginia Hospital Celebrating 100 Years

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In 2001 Historical Collections in the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library created an exhibit that traces the history of the first century of the Hospital in words and images. One copy of the exhibit traveled from location to location in the Health System and beyond; the other set of panels were hung in a busy hospital corridor near the main entrance where they remain today. These panels form the basis for this online exhibit which now includes the addition of a section on the first 14 years of the Hospital’s second century. We hope you enjoy following the history of the growth of the University of Virginia Health System as it seeks to fulfill its longstanding vision to benefit human health and improve quality of life through patient care, research, and education.

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The Hospital grows across Jefferson Park Avenue. Photo: Historical Collections, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library (CMHSL), University of Virginia (UVa).

In the 1970s, the Hospital Complex grew south, across Jefferson Park Avenue, as seen in the photo. The Josephine S. McLeod Nursing Education Building, in the left rear, and the Harvey E. Jordan Medical Education Building, to the right, were dedicated in 1972. Four years later, the Health Sciences Library linked the Multi-story Hospital to Jordan by building over Jefferson Park Avenue. This innovative use of space was made possible by the Charlottesville City Council which granted air rights. The $11 million Primary Care Center, standing to the left of Jordan, opened in January 1980 with seven outpatient clinics and support services. (Note: In 2016, Jordan Hall was renamed Pinn Hall, in honor of Vivian W. Pinn, a 1967 graduate of the UVA School of Medicine.)

Blue Ridge Hospital

Blue Ridge Hospital. Photo: Historical Collections, CMHSL, UVa.

The beginning of the Blue Ridge Sanatorium can be traced back to 1917 when a state senator cited the desperate need for more beds for tuberculosis treatment. In 1978 with this need drastically diminished, the Sanatorium officially was transferred to the University of Virginia and became the Blue Ridge Hospital. It served epileptic, psychiatric, geriatric, diabetic, chemotherapy, and adult rehabilitation inpatients for a number of years.

The Need for a New University Hospital

Within ten years of the Multi-story Hospital dedication, the need for more space was beginning to be felt. By the early 1980s, the situation was becoming critical. Certain departments were scattered among three or four buildings, and some office personnel literally worked in converted broom closets. Faculty had to make do with diminishing research space, outdated utilities were expensive to adapt to work with modern equipment, and patients were intimidated and frustrated with the maze of the Medical Center.

Seven Hundred foot Link connecting Old and New Hospitals. Photo: Historical Collections, CMHSL, UVa.

After seriously considering building a new complex on the Blue Ridge Hospital grounds, medical faculty and University administrators determined to keep the Medical Center an important presence on the University’s central Grounds. Expansion would be on land next to the Primary Care Center. In March of 1984, the State Health Commissioner issued a certificate of public need for a $200 million facility, and the state legislature and governor gave their approval. Originally designed to be six stories tall, the new Hospital building gained two additional stories nearly four years later. On March 20, 1989, more than 140 patients moved from the old Multi-story building to the new University Hospital through the 700-foot link. Almost two years after the first patient was moved, the last inpatient was transferred to the eighth floor of the new hospital.

Pegasus

Pegasus. Photo: Department of Marketing and Communications, University of Virginia (UVa) Health System.

The hospital’s critical care medical transport program, which transfers critically ill or injured patients from smaller hospitals and accident sites to the University of Virginia, is named Pegasus. Started in 1984 with one helicopter, Pegasus had by 1998 transported 10,000 patients and flown more than one million miles. In 2000, a Pegasus on wheels was added to the fleet to complement the air operations and enhance efforts to provide the highest level of pre-hospital care to patients needing transport.

Diagnosis and Treatment Continually Improve

Gamma Knife surgery. Photo: Department of Marketing and Communications, UVa Health System.

Over the last century, the University of Virginia Hospital has consistently introduced state-of-the-art methods of diagnosis and treatment. This commitment to the highest quality health care has led to an extraordinary level of technological sophistication in the tools available to physicians and nurses. In 1984, the Medical Center installed a lithotripter for the non-surgical treatment of kidney stones, serving some of the first outpatients in the country. The next year, the Medical Center became the first site in Virginia to operate a Magnetic Resonance Imager. Gamma Knife technology came to the Hospital in 1989, and was one of the first in the United States. Physicians use it to perform brain surgery without a scalpel by directing gamma radiation through a shielded helmet with 201 precisely spaced holes.

Spiral CAT scan. Photo: Department of Marketing and Communications, UVa Health System.

Laser treatment of skin cancer. Photo: Department of Marketing and Communications, UVa Health System.

The University of Virginia-HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital.

The University of Virginia Health System after 100 Years

University of Virginia Hospital, 2000-2001. Photo: Department of Marketing and Communications, University of Virginia Health System.

The three-tiered facade of the University of Virginia Hospital dominates the frame in this aerial photograph. Juxtaposed to the right is the old Multi-story Hospital. These two buildings are the principal architectural components of a system now comprised of more than thirty-five structures, grown from the single building which a group of far-sighted medical faculty members established in the first year of the last century. And the latest complement of research buildings and support facilities are under construction.

Of course as the name implies, the University of Virginia Health System is far more than a mosaic of buildings and sophisticated machinery. The Health System is most importantly a complex organization of individuals linked together for the very humane purposes of medical care: the alleviation of suffering and the conquest of disease. Initiated a century ago, this legacy of care provides an ample and sturdy framework for a brilliant future.

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A view of the Steele Wing and central Hospital Pavilion before construction. Photo: Special Collections, University of Virginia (UVa) Library.

The vital and complementary relationship between medical care and medical education so firmly established in 1901 attained a tangible architectural expression in 1929. In that year a substantial addition to the University of Virginia Hospital complex was completed to house the University of Virginia School of Medicine. These three photographs, taken from approximately the same angle, reveal the progress of construction over the previous year. The first is a view of the Steele Wing and the rear of the central 1901 building.

Basement level walls of the new Medical School. Photo: Special Collections, UVa Library.

This photo shows the basement level walls of the new Medical School in place, connected to the east end of the Steele Wing.

Medical School portico under construction. Photo: Special Collections, UVa Library.

In the third photo, the overall shape of the Medical School building had taken shape, with the prominent portico sheltering the main entrance still under scaffolding. Its brick columns had not yet been coated with plaster. The architects centered the portico between the Steele Wing and an equally proportioned new wing to the left, an architectural composition which united the Hospital and Medical School behind a single unified facade.

For the first time, all of the medical departments were brought together in a single structure, linked to the Hospital. The new Medical School contained extensive laboratory facilities, fireproof storage, lecture halls, administrative offices, and a library. Along with these new facilities, the surgical and x-ray suites in the existing Hospital were modernized, and the Outpatient Department expanded.

Two new operating rooms in the first Hospital Pavilion. Photo: Historical Collections, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library (CMHSL), University of Virginia (UVa).

To create operating rooms from the old surgical theater in the first Hospital Pavilion, builders removed the tiers of seats from the theater and separated the two-story space into two separate floors. On the main floor, they opened a corridor with offices through to the rear of the building, and on the level above, they added a pair of operating rooms and furnished them with up-to-date equipment. This configuration of rooms —corridor with offices below and the pair of suites above —still exists today in the heart of the West Complex of the University of Virginia Hospital. All the rooms in this surviving section of the very first Hospital building are now used as offices.

Heliotherapy, ca. 1929. Photo: Historical Collections, CMHSL, UVa.

Children and nurses gather on the bridge leading from the McIntire Wing to the roof of the Preventorium. Photo: School of Nursing, Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry, University of Virginia.

The Hospital Complex Around 1929

The Hospital Complex, 1929. Photo: Historical Collections, CMHSL, UVa.

This aerial view was likely taken shortly after the completion of the new Medical School, its large wings visible at the top and center of the photograph. To the left, from top to bottom, are the 1916 Steele Wing, incorporated into the new Medical School, the 1907 Hospital Wing, the original 1901 Hospital Pavilion with a bridge to the new Medical School, the 1905 Hospital Wing, the 1924 McIntire Wing, and the 1928 Teachers’ Preventorium. Below the Preventorium, but not visible in the photograph, is the site of McKim Hall, which was completed in 1931 as a dormitory for students in the nursing school.

Growth of the University of Virginia Hospital in the 1930s

Throughout the years of the Depression, steadily increasing usage of medical services put considerable pressure on the Hospital’s aging facilities, particularly the wards of the first Hospital buildings. Consequently, over the decade of the 1930s and the first years of the 1940s, University leaders successfully raised funds for five substantial building campaigns to expand and modernize the complex.

The first of these buildings was McKim Hall, for the University of Virginia School of Nursing. Begun just before the Depression, in 1929, McKim was completed in 1931. That year it accommodated the largest nursing class in the school’s history —53 students —as well as the program’s first full-time faculty member.

The second building campaign involved the construction of an addition to the west side of the McIntire Wing. This large new structure, completed in 1936, was dedicated to Dr. Paul B. Barringer, who had been instrumental in the founding of the Hospital. The Barringer Wing contained an additional obstetrical ward and rooms for private patients.

In 1939, the third building campaign resulted in the extensive renovation of the Teachers’ Preventorium. Two floors with an attic and roof deck were constructed on top of the existing structure, as well as a five-story section added to the west end. These modifications housed the John Staige Davis Department of Neurology and Psychiatry. The new psychiatric wards offered considerable improvement in therapeutic regimes for the treatment of mental diseases.

Shortly after the completion of the Davis Wards, the Hospital administration added a residential facility for interns, the fourth new construction project. The House Staff Quarters, as this building came to be known, opened in 1941; it was destroyed in 1986 to make way for the link to the present main Hospital.

The New West Wing, 1941

The West Wing. Photo: Department of Marketing and Communications, University of Virginia Health System.

The final and most extensive building campaign of this decade-long period was the construction of the West Wing which also opened in 1941. This new building took form in the open space directly in front of the original Hospital Pavilion and its two adjacent wings, and was directly connected to all three structures. Perhaps most important,  were the improved facilities for surgery. Six new operating rooms with related work spaces tripled the capacity of the Hospital’s surgical service, and made possible for the first time night staffing of general surgery, greatly decreasing response time for emergency cases.

Typical ward in the new building. Photo: Special Collections, UVa Library.

In addition to the additional operating rooms, the West Wing provided more functional administrative and storage spaces, as well as new and more spacious wards for Obstetrics and Gynecology, Surgery, Internal Medicine, Otolaryngology, and Ophthalmology. This photo shows a typical ward in the new building.

The University of Virginia Hospital Complex in 1946

Aerial Photo of the Hospital Complex. Photo: Historical Collections, CMHSL, UVa.

This aerial view was taken just after World War II, when an addition to the front of McKim Hall was under way, visible on the right in the photograph above. Proceeding from McKim Hall to the left is the Davis Wing (incorporating the former Teacher’s Preventorium), the McIntire Wing with the Barringer Wing in front, the West Wing (then the main entrance to the Hospital), and the Medical School. At the rear of the complex, next to McKim Hall are the House Staff Quarters, then a supply building, and finally the heating plant.

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Anatomical Hall, Thomas Jefferson, architect. Designed for anatomical and medical demonstrations, the windows were high so people could not see in. Medical School Professor Robley Dunglison opened a dispensary here. Razed in 1939.
Photo: Historical Collections, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library (CMHSL), University of Virginia (UVa).

The Infirmary, 1857. Established to provide inpatient medical care for students at the University, under the direction of the medical faculty. This building still stands on the University grounds, near McKim Hall. Photo: Historical Collections, CMHSL, UVa.

Paul Brandon Barringer (1857-1941). Professor of Physiology and Surgery, and Chairman of the Faculty. Photo: Historical Collections, CMHSL, UVa.

The Dispensary, 1892. This building stood on University Avenue near the present George Rogers Clark Memorial. Razed in 1916, the steps at the sidewalk survive. Photo: Historical Collections, CMHSL, UVa.

University of Virginia Hospital

The University of Virginia Hospital, 1901, Paul J. Pelz, architect. Photo: Special Collections, University of Virginia (UVa) Library.

Barringer fostered the idea of establishing a University hospital for the next six years. A faculty committee discussed plans and specifications for the project, and fund-raising efforts began. Architect Paul J. Pelz developed the designs for a 150-bed facility consisting of a central building linked by a single corridor to a pair of flanking pavilions. After intensive planning and negotiation, a construction appropriation became available on October 10, 1899, and on April 13, 1901, Thomas Jefferson’s birthday, the first building of the University of Virginia Hospital opened.

Elevation Drawing, West Facade, University of Virginia Hospital, ca. 1904, Paul J. Pelz, architect. Photo: Special Collections, UVa Library.

In the above drawing, Pelz presented an enlargement of the original scheme for the hospital, expanding the composition to include nine pavilions linked by an enclosed corridor. His intention was to restate in a modern yet complementary architectural language Jefferson’s original conception for the University buildings —the Rotunda, pavilions, and dormitory rooms linked by covered passageways.

The First University of Virginia Hospital as realized, panoramic photograph, ca. 1929. Photo: School of Nursing, Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry, University of Virginia (UVa).

Architect Paul Pelz’s scheme provided a master plan for growth of the complex, but the rapid success of the hospital and the demand for new spaces outstripped the relatively diminutive pavilions he had envisioned. The 1905 and 1907 flanking wings shown above were built with two stories rather than the one originally designed.

In 1916, the Steele Wing was completed (on the far left in the photo above). The largest building to date, the Steele Wing doubled the capacity of the hospital and accommodated in its basement the Outpatient Department formerly housed in the Dispensary. To the right stands the McIntire Wing, completed in 1924, for obstetrical and pediatric services and interns’ quarters. The Teachers’ Preventorium of 1928 is the wing at the far right. Constructed with a payroll deduction from Virginia’s teachers, this facility provided low-cost healthcare for the state’s poorly paid teachers, a valuable service in the era before health insurance.

Operating Theater, First Hospital Building, 1913. A photographer from Charlottesville’s Holsinger Studio captured this image of the surgical team. Note the use of ether anesthesia, dripped onto a cloth draped over the patient’s face. Photo: Special Collections, UVa.

Surgical Observation, Operating Theater, First Hospital Building, ca. 1921. The operating theater was a large room, flooded with natural light and the illumination of a mirrored electric lamp. Students and interns observed from the ascending rows of semi-circular seats. With the opening of the hospital, practical clinical experience was incorporated into the medical degree program. Observation of clinical procedures remains vital to contemporary medical education. Photo: School of Nursing, Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry, UVa.

This first building of the hospital complex contained an operating theater, solarium, laboratories, and accommodations for the superintendent and student nurses. Its total cost was $26,000, about one-quarter over budget. In 1902, beds for 25 patients were installed. Two pavilion wings, added in 1905 and 1907 to each side of the main building, contained large wards for patients, a small number of private rooms, storage and kitchen facilities, and interns’ quarters.

Hospital Admissions Book. Photo: Historical Collections, CMHSL, UVa.

Unlike many hospitals of the day, the University of Virginia Hospital required records on each patient starting in 1907. This photograph shows a page from the first admissions book. It is notable because the second patient listed is Ellen Anthony, who was the second reported case of sickle cell anemia in medical literature. This documents Anthony’s admission on November 15, 1910, and indicates she was diagnosed with “crescentic” anemia and discharged unimproved on April 1, 1911, nearly half a year later.

Nurses and the Early School of Nursing

Nursing Students at the Hospital entrance, ca. 1906. Photo: School of Nursing, Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry, UVa.

To ensure adequate staffing of the hospital, the University of Virginia opened a training school for nurses in 1901. Student nurses learned on the job, working ten to twelve hours a day for two years before obtaining their degree. These nurses lived on the premises.

Josephine Sarah McLeod (1880-1948). Photo: School of Nursing, Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry, UVa.

A nurse and boy stand on the bridge leading from the upper floor of the first hospital building to the new medical school. Photo: School of Nursing, Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry, UVa.

Hospital Patients and Personnel of the 1920s. Photo: School of Nursing, Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry, UVa.

Steele Wing Ward, ca. 1921. Photo: School of Nursing, Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry, UVa.

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The essence of an academic medical center is the integration of patient care, medical education, and clinically-based research. Health care at the University of Virginia Hospital not only provides essential medical treatments for patients, but also enables nurses and physicians to be trained, and medical knowledge to be advanced. The next six photos show researchers, students, physicians, and nurses from the mid-twentieth century.

The first hemodialysis done at the University of Virginia Hospital, 1959. Photo: Historical Collections, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library (CMHSL), University of Virginia (UVa).

Practical nurses graduate in 1954. Photo: Historical Collections, CMHSL, UVa.

A nurse observes a patient under an oxygen tent. Photo: Historical Collections, CMHSL, UVa.

Scientists use equipment to monitor the cardiovascular and central nervous systems of animals. Photo: Historical Collections, CMHSL, UVa.

Scientists study the chemical processes of basal metabolism. Photo: Historical Collections, CMHSL, UVa.

The medical school class of 1959 gathers on the steps of the Medical School. Photo: Historical Collections, CMHSL, UVa.

A New University of Virginia Hospital Model, 1955

Hospital Director John M. Stacey describes the features of a revised model to members of the Virginia General Assembly in October 1955. Photo: Historical Collections, CMHSL, UVa.

As early as 1942, Medical School Dean Harvey E. Jordan appointed a building committee to assess the spatial needs of the Hospital and Medical School. By 1947 plans were under development for a substantial new hospital building, a multi-story structure to be sited at the center of the existing complex, connected to the McIntire Wing and the Medical School. Architect George Holderness of the New York architectural firm Eggers and Higgins built a model for a sixteen-story structure with four equal wings. Along with additional infill buildings to be located behind the West Wing and attached to the Medical School, this model represented an ideal form for the future complex from which all subsequent proposals derived. Over the succeeding years, further discussions took place and lobbying efforts began for allocation of state and federal funds. In the revised model shown to the Virginia General Assembly in 1955, the multi-story building has been changed to a “T” shape and rendered in eight stories. The main entrance was to face Jefferson Park Avenue. All the hard work of planning paid off in January 1958, when funds were released for the new building and construction bids solicited. The ground-breaking ceremony took place on June 15, 1958, and the new building was completed in November 1960.

Children’s Rehabilitation Center

Patients and staff at a Christmas party. Photo: Historical Collections, CMHSL, UVa.

In 1941, William J. Rucker provided funding for the establishment of a Home for Convalescent Children in a turn-of-the-century residence called “West Cairns,” sited on a nine-acre estate one mile west of the University. The Rucker Home opened the next year under the auspices of the Department of Orthopedics. By the end of the decade, however, it had become evident that the service required a more modern facility. Negotiations and fund raising began, and in 1956-1957, a four-wing building with beds for 30 pediatric patients was constructed on the site of the Rucker Home. With the new building came a team approach to treatment and a new philosophy: “to shift the focus of attention from the handicap itself to the child as a whole.” Renovations in 1971 permitted care for a growing number of outpatients. Rededicated the Kluge Children’s Rehabilitation Center in 1988, after additional construction made possible by John Kluge and his wife Patricia, the facility included an array of services designed to aid in diagnosis, treatment, and research.

Chaplaincy Services and Pastoral Education

Walter Henricks and Sandys Hutton. Photo: Historical Collections, CMHSL, UVa.

An anonymous gift in 1956 supported the first official chaplain for the Hospital, Walter A. Henricks, who was assisted by Deaconess Mary Sandys Hutton. The service’s purpose has always been to give experienced and compassionate pastoral and spiritual care to patients, family, and hospital staff. Over the years, the service has expanded to provide continuing education programs for local clergy, training for lay visitors, consulting services for hospital departments, and a full-time residency program in Clinical Pastoral Education.

The University of Virginia Hospital Complex in 1960

Aerial view of the Hospital, 1960. Photo: Historical Collections, CMHSL, UVa.

The 1950s brought a number of new additions to the medical complex. Most prominent in this photo is the just-completed Multi-story Hospital in the center of the image. Adjacent the new hospital to the left is the Davis Wing —with the columns on the side. An extension completed in 1954 can be seen forming the left hand corner of the Davis building. This is the Barringer Addition, which linked the Davis Wards with the Barringer Wing. On the right side of the photograph, attached to the wings of the Medical School is a six-story structure begun in 1951 to house additional research laboratories. Between this Medical School Addition and the Multi-story Hospital is the upper floor of an auditorium and lecture room wing, built in 1950 to replace the earlier Medical School auditorium in the same location. Not visible behind the Multi-story Hospital is the Cancer Research Building, begun in 1949 and expanded in 1958. In the left foreground is the familiar shape of McKim Hall and in the center foreground are the House Staff Quarters.

After completion of the Multi-story Hospital, the West Wing was renovated and an addition for clinical administration constructed immediately behind. This project, finished in 1965, required the destruction of all but the rear portions of the original Hospital Pavilion and the 1907 wing. The 1905 wing was completely removed to permit expansion of the Radiology Department at this time.

The Hospital Auxiliary in Action

Hospital Auxiliary sale held in the early 1950s. Photo: Historical Collections, CMHSL, UVa.

The goal of the Hospital Auxiliary, which traces its beginnings back to 1904, is to provide service to the hospital and the patients. Over the years, volunteers have raised funds by rummage sales, dances, gift and sandwich shops, the Lights of Love, and the Holiday Book Fair. The Auxiliary has financed numerous noteworthy projects, including donations of equipment shortly after the Hospital opened, purchase of an ambulance in the 1920s, and contributions for the first hospital social worker in 1928. Later the Auxiliary provided funding for the original Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and the first Coronary Care Unit in the late 1960s, the purchase of all television sets in patient rooms, and the establishment of the Hospitality House. Currently, major projects of the Hospital Auxiliary are Healthcare scholarships, grants to various departments and funding for the Hospitality House, the Children’s Medical Center, and Senior Services. The Auxiliary has expended over $1.4 million in the past decade for the benefit of the hospital and its patients.

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