A teaching hospital is a hospital or medical center that provides clinical education and training to future and current health professionals. Teaching hospitals are often affiliated with medical schools and work closely with medical students throughout their period of matriculation, and especially during their clerkship (internship) years. In most cases, teaching hospitals also offer Graduate Medical Education (GME)/ physician residency programs, where medical school graduates train under a supervising (attending) physician to assist with the coordination of care.
Contents
In addition to offering medical education to medical students and physician residents, many teaching hospitals also serve as research institutes.
History
Although institutions for caring for the sick are known to have existed much earlier in history, the first teaching hospital, where students were authorized to methodically practice on patients under the supervision of physicians as part of their education, was reportedly the Academy of Gundishapur in the Persian Empire during the Sassanid era.
In culture
Many American television shows, usually medical dramas, take place in teaching hospitals. Some examples are:
Some Canadian shows take place in teaching hospitals as well. For example, Saving Hope takes place in the Hope Zion Hospital (located in Toronto).
In the United Kingdom, the 1980s television documentary series Jimmy's was set in St James's University Hospital, Leeds (nicknamed Jimmy's), which formerly claimed to be the largest teaching hospital in Europe.
Paris has many renowned teaching hospitals: Pitié-Salpêtrière, Cochin, Necker or Hôtel-Dieu. They appear in many films and TV shows. An ER episode, for example, is set in Hôpital Saint-Antoine (AP-HP). Many patients are surprised to see medical students at their bedside: they know they are in top hospitals without knowing those hospitals are teaching hospitals.
A scene in the 1992 film, Lorenzo's Oil, Lorenzo is shown at the Boston Children's Hospital