Dallas, Dallas County
Baylor University Medical Center Dallas in 1900 had insufficient medical care for its more than 40,000 residents. That year, despite some opposition from local doctors, Dr. Charles McDaniel Rosser established the University of Dallas Medical School, although at the time no such university existed. Rosser opened, in a small house, the Good Samaritan hospital as a training facility. He continued to look for local support for a larger teaching hospital. In 1903, Dr. George W. Truett, influential pastor of Dallas' First Baptist Church, challenged Dallas citizens to support a "great humanitarian hospital." The Baptist General Convention of Texas agreed to administer the project, which became the Texas Baptist Memorial Sanitarium. It received its charter in 1903. The Baptist group purchased Dr. Rosser's hospital and continued using it as a training facility for the school, renamed that same year as Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Robert Cook Buckner was first board president, and cattle baron Christopher C. Slaughter was an early major donor, helping to finance a new 250-bed facility, which opened in 1909. In 1921, the facility was renamed Baylor Hospital and later Baylor University Hospital to reflect its affiliation with Waco's Baylor University, which sponsored the schools on the hospital's campus. The Baylor Plan, created in 1929, was a pioneering hospital insurance program that later became Blue Cross. In 1943, Baylor University relocated its college of medicine to Houston. The hospital remained in Dallas, changing its name in 1959 to Baylor University Medical Center to represent better the various hospitals and specialty areas on its campus. The center, a century old in 2003, remains a major research hub, providing patient care and medical training. Continuing its mission of service and excellence, the center is also one of the nation's top facilities for transplants, cardiovascular surgery and other procedures. (2002)