Santa Clara Valley Medical Center is a 574-bed tertiary medical center, owned and operated by the County of Santa Clara. The Medical Center is part of the Santa Clara Valley Health and Hospital System. Locally it is also known as Valley Medical Center, Valley Medical, VMC, or simply 'Valley'. SCVMC is both a research hospital and teaching hospital. It is the county hospital and primary trauma center in Santa Clara County.
The medical center is located three miles west of downtown San Jose in an unincorporated "pocket" of Santa Clara County called Fruitdale, surrounded by the incorporated boundaries of the City of San Jose. The campus and hospital were founded at its present location in 1876 by Dr Benjamin Cory, the Director of Public Health. Founded as the County Hospital, it was the first organized hospital in the San Francisco Bay Area. The current campus continues to sit at the very same spot where the original hospital was constructed in the 19th century. This has led to issues with construction on site with the February 2012 unearthing of a 1870-1920s pauper's grave site.
Santa Clara Valley Medical Center is one of four adult level one trauma centers in Northern California. It also is one of three pediatric level one trauma centers in Northern California. It operates the only federally designated spinal cord injury center in Northern California, the Rehabilitation Trauma Center, along with the only traumatic brain injury center for the treatment and rehabilitation of patients. It operates one of four burn centers in Northern California. It is the only trauma center in California to co-locate all five of these services on one campus.
Santa Clara Valley Medical Centers operates numerous critical care units including the highest level neonatal intensive care unit. The medical center also is licensed for cardiovascular surgery and cardiac catheterization. It is designated a primary stroke treatment center by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Organizations. In addition, the Medical Center operates onsite outpatient clinics and satellite clinics in Gilroy, Milpitas, central San Jose, East San Jose, Southeast San Jose and Sunnyvale.
Residency programs operated by Santa Clara Valley Medical Center include Medicine, OB-GYN, Radiology and Pharmacy. Residents in Anesthesiology, Dermatology, Emergency Medicine, General Surgery, Neurology, Ophthalmology, Orthopedic Surgery, Pediatrics, Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Plastic Surgery, Radiation Oncology and Urology from Stanford Medical School all rotate through Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. Residences in Infectious Diseases from Kaiser Permanente Medical Program rotate through Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, as do members of the Occupational Medicine Program from UC San Francisco.
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