About the Cleveland Clinic

The Cleveland Clinic is Cleveland's largest private employer as well as one of the most well-regarded hospitals in the United States. The facility sits on 140 acres in Cleveland's Fairfax neighborhood and is spread out over 41 buildings. The Clinic also has 12 community hospitals and health centers in NE Ohio and Florida and is expanding throughout the world.

The Cleveland Clinic was established in 1921 by three WWI surgeons, George Washington Crile (pictured above), Frank Bunts, and William Lower. They invited a local internist, John Phillips to join the project. The concept of group practice was all but unheard of at the time. Only the Mayo Clinic in the United States operated on such a model.

The Cleveland Clinic was the site of one of the city's most spectacular disasters in 1929 when a fire in the basement of the hospital, set off by highly flamable X-Ray film, ignited the building, claiming 123 lives, including that of founder John Phillips.

The Clinic continued to grow despite the Great Depression and WWII, establishing itself as one of the primary cardiac care hospitals in the world. The Cleveland Clinic has been responsible for many firsts in health care, including:

• first successful larynx transplant
• first coronary bypass surgery (CABG) by Rene Favaloro in 1967
• discovery of first gene linked to familial coronary artery disease
• identification of carpal tunnel syndrome
• first minimally invasive aortic valve surgery

The Cleveland Clinic treated more than 2.8 million patients in 2005 with 70,000 hospital admissions. Patients represented all 50 states and more than 100 nations. There are 170 salaried physicians on staff in 120 specialties.