UC Davis Medical Center

UC Davis Medical Center, formerly known as Sacramento Medical Center, is a major academic health center located in Sacramento, California. It is owned and operated by the University of California of Oakland, California as part of its University of California, Davis campus. The medical center sits on a sprawling 142-acre campus (often referred to as the Sacramento Campus to distinguish it from the main campus in nearby Davis) located between the Elmhurst, Tahoe Park, and Oak Park residential neighborhoods. The site incorporates the land and some of the buildings of the former Sacramento Medical Center (which was acquired from the County of Sacramento in 1973) as well as much of the land (and two buildings) previously occupied by the California State Fair until its 1967 move to a new location. The county hospital land included a graveyard for indigent patients which UC Davis dug up in 2004 during construction (the remains were moved to a nearby county cemetery).

The 631-bed hospital serves as key referral center for a 65,000-square-mile (170,000 km2) area that includes 33 counties and 6 million residents. It operates inland Northern California’s only level I trauma center and maintains a staff of specialists and researchers in more than 150 areas of health care.

UC Davis Medical Center ranks among the top 50 hospitals in America according an annual U.S. News & World Report survey published in July 2011. Out of roughly 5,000 hospitals nationwide, the medical center placed 39th for cancer care and 46th for orthpaedics.

The medical center is the primary teaching hospital affiliated with the UC Davis School of Medicine. The hospital, medical school, Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing and UC Davis Medical Group together comprise the UC Davis Health System, a brand of the nearby University of California, Davis.