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Baptist Memorial Health Care - History
 
Daily Bread
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
John 14:27
Since 1912, Baptist has partnered with top-quality medical staff to further our mission of healing, preaching and teaching. Our physicians, nurses and other professional staff have proven their commitment to patients with an ever-increasing list of medical firsts and milestones.



1916: Physicians at Baptist and the Campbell Clinic are the first in the Mid-South to specialize in orthopedics.



1930: Physicians at Baptist and the Campbell Clinic are the first in the nation to write a "how to" primer on orthopedics; the textbook is used during World War II by general practitioners.

1935: Baptist is the first hospital in the Mid-South to offer physical therapy.



1953: The National Polio Foundation selects Baptist as an area rehabilitation center. A new unit for physical medicine and rehabilitation of Mid-South polio patients is created.



1962: Dr. Robert M. Miles, director of medical education, develops a clip to prevent blood clots formed in a vein from traveling through the vein and becoming lodged in the heart and lungs. Several years later the "Miles Clip" will be used to prevent a blood clot in former President Richard M. Nixon's iliac vein from reaching a vital organ.



1972: Dr. Richard Kelley, pathologist for the microbiology and immunology sections of pathology at Baptist, develops the first bacterium medium for the borreliosis disease that causes relapsing fever in humans. At that time this disease, transmitted by ticks, had never been cultured. The cause of Lyme disease was determined using this medium, now known as Kelley's medium.

1974: Baptist is the first hospital in Memphis and only the third in the country to install a first generation unit of an EMI/CAT head-only scanner.

1977: Baptist is one of the first 10 hospitals in the United States to establish a unit for the study, diagnosis and treatment of sleeping disorders, pioneering the "bedroom" format for studying sleep disorders in patients.



1980: Dr. Richard Kelly and Dr. Wilton Rightsel are the first to isolate and identify the organism causing Legionnaire's disease.

1982: Baptist becomes the first acute care hospital in the country to have an on-site geriatric unit when the first patients were admitted to the 29-bed unit.

1984: Baptist Medical Center installs the first hyperbaric oxygen chamber in the Mid-South.

1984: Dr. Shamim Molnuddin diagnoses tuberculosis of the lungs by needle biopsies, eliminating need for surgical incision of the chest wall.

1984: Baptist becomes the second hospital in the United States and only the sixth in the world to use functional cardiac imaging, a nuclear medicine technique to diagnose coronary disease without surgery.

1984: Baptist establishes a lymphoplasmapheresis center - one of only three in the U.S. - devoted to research and clinical applications of pheresis.

1984: Baptist physicians begin working with and exploring functional cardiac imaging, a new, non-invasive nuclear technique for evaluating cardiac function and diagnosing coronary disease.

1985: The first heart transplant in Memphis is performed by a team of physicians from Baptist Memorial Hospital and University of Tennessee-Memphis.

1985: Surgical oncologist William West, M.D., begins conducting research into the use of interleukin-2 (IL2), an adoptive immunotherapy treatment for cancer, which received widespread national publicity following a Dec. 4 announcement by the National Cancer Institute.

1986: Researchers at Baptist begin studying a new pacemaker that senses the activity of the body and increases the pulse rate accordingly.

1986: Physicians at Baptist begin performing bone marrow transplants on patients with lymphoma or Hodgkins disease who are unable to be treated through conventional chemotherapy, thus creating the first adult bone marrow transplant center in the Mid-South.

1986: With an average of eight operations a month for epilepsy, Baptist's Epicare Center becomes the largest surgical epilepsy center in the U.S.

1986: A team of Baptist physicians performs Memphis' first implant of an automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator, a system that monitors heart activity and treats abnormal heart rhythms by administering an electrical shock directly to the heart.

1987: Surgeons at Baptist become the first in the Memphis area to perform surgeries to correct Wolf-Parkinson-White Syndrome, a heart abnormality that is sometimes unresponsive to medical therapy.

1987: A state-of-the-art surgical videotaping suite opens, allowing off-site viewers to observe and hear surgical procedures, thus expanding the potential of surgical teaching conferences.

1987: Surgeons begin using the acute ventricular assist device, an experimental device that can temporarily assist a patient's heart circulation until it has recovered sufficiently on its own.

1988: Baptist joins with four other medical centers in the country, including Duke University and the University of Michigan, to participate in TAMI 5, a study to determine the effects of intravenous thrombolytic therapy and angioplasty on myocardial infarctions.

1988: Baptist becomes the first hospital in the Mid-South, and one of only a handful in the U.S., to use dipyridamole on patients with suspected coronary artery disease who are unable to exercise at a rate vigorous enough to allow effective exercise testing with thallium-201 myocardial perfusion imaging.

1989: Baptist becomes the first hospital in the Mid-South to be selected as an investigative site for biliary lithotripsy, a revolutionary technology for pulverizing gallstones with shock waves, thus avoiding the pain, expense and recovery time associated with conventional surgery to remove the stones. A 36-year-old patient has three gallstones disintegrated through shock waves.

1989: For the first time in the field of plastic surgery, a surgical team at Baptist uses microvascular surgery, also called reconstructive microsurgery, to transfer stomach tissue from the lower abdomen of a burn victim to a burned area of the 21-year-old patient's neck.

1989: Laser lithotripsy is used in the Mid-South for the first time when the kidney stone of a 44-year-old-patient is disintegrated at the Baptist Stone Treatment Center, just two weeks after biliary lithotripsy was used for the first time in the Mid South.

1989: A 75-year-old woman becomes the first person in the Mid-South to receive the experimental drug t-PA at Baptist, as part of a nationwide study to determine the drug's effect in fighting strokes.

1989: Baptist physicians begin transplanting harvested healthy blood stem cells from patients prior to chemotherapy and radiation therapy and then re-introducing the cells back into their bodies to rebuild bone marrow ravaged by the side effects of therapy.



1990: The newborn intensive care unit at Baptist East begins participating in a national study to determine the effect of externally produced surfactant, a substance which is produced naturally in the lungs of the fetus to help normal breathing but which is lacking in premature infants.

1991: Baptist physicians begin the first project in this country involving an experimental nuclear medicine scan which could provide physicians with an additional, non-invasive method to determine the condition of transplanted hearts, and of detecting heart disease and hearts undergoing rejection.

1992: Baptist's nuclear medicine section of radiology services begins operating the country's first dual-head, nuclear medicine gamma camera to use slip-ring technology, and only the second such camera in operation in the world.

1992: Cardiologists at Baptist begin participating in an international study to determine the effectiveness of the drug Flolan in reducing the complications in patients suffering from severe congestive heart failure.

1992: For the first time in the United States, a newly developed, patient-controlled analgesia device (PCA) for intraspinal morphine delivery is implanted into a 63-year-old male with bladder cancer that had metastasized to the pelvic bone.

1992: A three-day seminar on the new health care concept of case management is hosted by Baptist at Memphis' Peabody Hotel and attracts a sellout audience of more than 800 health care professionals from across the country.

1992: Baptist enrolls its 100th patient in the pilot program of the SECORDS study, designed to determine why African-Americans are twice as likely as whites to experience stroke and 60 percent more likely to suffer a fatal or disabling stroke.

1993: The first laparoscopic-assisted hemicolectomy in Memphis is performed using a microscopic camera inserted through a small incision to remove one-third of a 38-year-old male's colon, an alternative to the more traditional, complex surgery.

1993: Baptist physicians become the first in the Mid-South to use the BVS 5000. This temporary external heart-pump support system, the first such device approved by the FDA, enables the heart to rest and recuperate after surgery.

1993: Surgeons at Baptist begin using a coronary stent made of stainless steel, together with a standard angioplasty balloon catheter, to open blocked arteries in emergency situations.

1994: Surgeons at Baptist are among the first in the Southeast to use percutaneous transluminal coronary rotational ablation, a high-speed burr covered with diamond micro-crystals designed to open clogged arteries.

1994: Baptist becomes the first hospital in the country to install a newly developed, second generation, automated medication distribution system called the Pyxis Medstation Rx.

1994: Baptist opens its myelosuppression unit, a 12-bed, "super clean" unit for cancer patients and other patients with extreme susceptibility to infection due to low white blood cell count.

1994: Laptop computers are installed in surgery at Baptist Medical Center and Baptist East as part of a pilot stage in the installation of an electronic operating room record.

1994: The Perinatal Center opens at Baptist East to provide complete inpatient and outpatient services for those 10 percent of the Mid-South's births involving high-risk pregnancies.

1995: Baptist begins using cryosurgery, a technique involving a combination of ultrasound, computer-assisted surgical access and nitrogen gas frozen to minus 190 Centigrade, to treat prostate cancer cases.

1995: Surgeons at Baptist are among the first in the country to use a type of stereo endoscope that provides surgical teams with a three-dimensional view in laparoscopic surgery.

1995: Researchers with Baptist's cancer services program join a national study to determine the effectiveness of aspirin in preventing colorectal cancers.

1995: Baptist begins using computer-assisted biofeedback to help treat urinary incontinence.

1996: Baptist's East Memphis Surgery Center begins performing excimer laser photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) to correct nearsightedness, four months after being approved by the FDA.

1996: The Mid-South's first minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass is performed at Baptist.

1996: The Mid-South's first cardio-myoplasty (back muscle wrapped around faulty heart) is performed at Baptist.

1996: The first endoscopic staphenous vein harvest of its type in the United States is performed at Baptist. The vein, taken from groin to ankle, is used immediately for bypass surgery on the patient.

1996: Baptist physicians become the first in the Mid-South to successfully implant the HeartMate ventricular assist device, a prototype for a permanent VAD operated by battery in the home.

1997: Baptist is the first in the Mid-South to recruit patients for a study to determine if sudden cardiac death from heart failure can be prevented by the use of an implantable defibrillator.

1997: Surgeons at Baptist join several new studies attempting to refine minimally invasive techniques through which coronary bypass surgery, valve replacements and other cardiac procedures can be performed without necessitating the opening of the sternum.

1998: The first successful sentinel node biopsy at Baptist East is performed on a 69-year-old patient with a malignant melanoma on the upper arm.

1998: A Baptist surgeon becomes the first in the Mid-South to use a new surgically implanted generator, the vagal nerve stimulator, to control seizure activity in epileptic patients.

1998: UT researchers complete a study (funded by Baptist) that shows new promise for patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome through the use of prolonged methylprednisolone therapy.

1998: A Baptist cardiologist becomes the first physician in the tri-state Baptist system to implant an insertable cardiac monitor in a patient prone to blackout episodes, thus allowing an EKG recording to help cardiologists determine the best course of treatment.

1999: The Baptist Cancer Institute's stem cell transplant program is one of only six in the nation to be accredited by the Foundation for the Accreditation of Hematopoietic Cell Therapy, Response Oncology Inc.

1999: P.D. Parrot, Baptist Memorial Health Care’s pediatric services mascot, was born. P.D. is used to teach children and health and safety issues.



2000: Baptist Memorial Health Care and Goldsmith’s join together to open the first retail-based mammography center in Memphis. The Baptist Women’s Health Center in the Goldsmith’s department store (now Macy's) at Oak Court features screening mammographies and bone density testing for osteoporosis.

2000: Baptist Memorial Health Care opens a Center for Urinary and Pelvic Disorders. A complete center of care, it offers the latest technology in the diagnosis and treatment of urinary and pelvic disorders.

2001: The Baptist Headache Clinic opens at Baptist Memorial Hospital-East’s Pediatric Outpatient Center. The comprehensive clinic offers diagnosis and treatment of headaches for patients 3 years old and above.

2001: Baptist Memorial Hospital for Women opens, making it the first and only hospital in Memphis dedicated to women’s health. At that time, it was one of approximately 15 women’s hospitals in the country.

2001: Baptist Memorial Hospital for Women starts the Inspirational Woman Awards, a contest to recognize women who have made positive contributions to the health of others.

2001: The Baptist Heart Institute opens. Located within Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis, it is a 165,000-square-foot facility that offers the full continuum of heart care in one convenient location. In addition to housing the Mid-South’s only heart transplant program, it is home to the Ford-Goltman Clinical Research Center, a specialized unit dedicated to providing care for clinical research patients.

2001: Baptist Memorial Hospital for Women premiers the ReliefBand® Device, a battery-operated device that relieves nausea by stimulating the nerve on the underside of the wrist.

2001: The Baptist Comprehensive Breast Center opens and gives women access to local breast cancer experts, services and resources under “one roof.” This virtual center, the first of its kind in Memphis, allows Baptist to coordinate a patient’s care from one central location, making it easier for patients to navigate the breast cancer process.

2003: Baptist’s Women’s Health Center is named a Center of Excellence for Mammotome® Breast Biopsy System, an alternative to open surgical biopsy.

2003: Baptist Memorial Health Care’s Mississippi hospitals join Information & Quality Initiative Healthcare, the Medicare quality improvement organization for Mississippi, on a national initiative to enhance the quality of care offered to the Medicare population.

2003: Baptist’s Comprehensive Breast Center, part of the Baptist Cancer Institute, is the first in Memphis to offer the Mammosite® Radiation Therapy System, a localized radiation treatment for breast cancer patients.

2003: The heart transplant program’s 200th heart transplant is performed by Baptist physicians. Baptist remains the only hospital in the Mid-South that performs adult heart transplants, with Baptist doctors performing about 15 a year.

2003: Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto wins a “Best of the Best” honor for its Institute for Healthcare Improvement collaborative. The collaborative comprises hospitals all over the country. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement is a not-for-profit organization driving the improvement of health by advancing the quality and value of health care.

2003: Baptist begins using a new robotic surgery device to perform some open-heart and prostate surgeries. Called the da Vinci®, the machine allows surgeons to perform major surgeries by making only small incisions. The machine can be used for open-heart, gynecologic, prostate, urologic and other surgical procedures.

2003: Baptist opens Occupational Medicine and Industrial Rehabilitation, a facility devoted exclusively to meeting the needs of area employers and employees. Services include drug screens, physicals, medical testing, safety testing, employee education, injury management, employment testing, ergonomic analysis, job analysis, rehabilitation therapy, work conditioning, functional capacity evaluation, on-site services, injury prevention programs, back schools, and more. The extensively outfitted rehabilitative, testing and training warehouse is equipped to offer job-specific training and rehabilitation.

2003: Baptist Rehabilitation-Germantown is the first in Memphis to offer VitalStim Therapy, electrical stimulation to improve swallowing.

2003: Baptist Rehabilitation-Germantown is the first and only provider in the Mid-South region of FTM (Functional Tone Management) orthoses used to encourage active utilization of arms affected by stroke or hemiplegia. FTM voted Best New Technology AOTA 2003.

2003: Two physical therapists obtain Board Certification as Specialists in Pediatric Therapy. There are only four Board Certified Pediatric Specialists in Memphis.

2004: Baptist Memorial Health Care introduces a new patient simulation lab that includes SimMan®, a mannequin-based patient simulator. The lab, one of a few like it in the country, is set in a patient’s room to duplicate an actual patient care setting, allowing students and staff to receive education and clinical competency/skill training in a controlled environment.

2004: Baptist is recognized by the QSource “Innovative Quality Series” Patient Care Improvement Collaborative for surgical infection prevention.

2004: Baptist Women’s Health Center installs Second Look®, a computer-aided detection system that assists radiologists in early breast cancer detection.

2004: Baptist is one of the first in the country to use a revolutionary new treatment for abnormal heart rhythms called Stereotaxis. Stereotaxis uses magnets to navigate catheters through complex artery systems, allowing doctors at the Baptist Heart Institute greater accuracy, decreased procedure time and the ability to access hard to reach areas of the heart.

2004: Baptist Rehabilitation-Germantown is the only rehabilitation provider of Low Vision Rehabilitation in the Mid-South. It provides the only certified low vision specialist/occupational therapist in the Mid-South Region.

2004: Baptist Rehabilitation is first in the Memphis area to offer infrared light treatment for the reversal of symptoms associated with diabetic neuropathy.

2004: Baptist Rehabilitation-Germantown's Sandy Winslow becomes the only therapist in the Mid-South Region certified by the Lymphatic Association of North America. She is a physical therapist who specializes and is certified in the Vodder technique for manual decongestive therapy to treat lymphedema.


Last modified: 3/3/2009


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