Located in Durham, N.C., the Duke University Medical Center features a regional emergency and trauma center that houses a separate emergency pediatrics department and a surgery suite that contains four operating rooms devoted solely to open-heart procedures. It is also home to the Duke Surgical Endosurgery Center, where patients can have minimally invasive surgical procedures performed, and a large diagnostic radiology area. Named to the U.S. News and World Reports 2010-11 Best Hospitals Honor Roll, Duke University Medical Center also ranks highly in many adult and pediatric specialties, including orthopedics, ophthalmology, pulmonology, heart and heart surgery, urology, neonatology and pediatric oncology.
Headquartered in Pittsburgh, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) is a health services system that contains 20 hospitals and several hundred doctors' offices and outpatient treatment centers, as well as a separate health insurance services division. UPMC is known for its technologically advanced facilities as well as its efforts to operate a more environmentally-friendly health care system. Its Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh is one of only several hospitals to have gone "paperless" and implemented a heavily electronic records system. In addition, with highly regarded specialty centers in the fields of geriatrics, women's health, cancer, psychiatry, transplantation, neurosurgery and rehabilitation, UPMC has repeatedly received recognition from U.S. News & World Reports as one of the country's best hospitals, including being named to its Best Hospitals Honor Roll 11 times as of 2010-2011.
The University of Washington Medical Center (UWMC) is known throughout the country as a provider of high-quality medical care in areas including high-risk pregnancy and neonatal intensive care, cardiology, organ transplantation, oncology and orthopedics. Located in Seattle, UWMC is a part of the University of Washington Medicine health-care system and is partnered with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, also located in Seattle, in providing advanced cancer treatment and diagnosis. As of 2009, UWMC employed 1,823 doctors who are also faculty members at the UW School of Medicine and have made many advances in the field of medicine, including the development of Doppler ultrasound usage to diagnose vascular disease and the Scribner Shunt which has helped make long-term kidney dialysis possible for patients.
The University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC) was founded in 1927 in Chicago. In addition to a standard hospital, UCMC also features an adult inpatient care facility, the Comer's Children Hospital, Duchossois Center for Advanced Medicine, a maternity and women's hospital, the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and many outpatient centers throughout the Chicago area. The UCMC doctors are all faculty members at the Pritzker School of Medicine as well. Some of the UCMC's notable specialties include cancer, cardiology, neurosciences, endocrinology, geriatrics, gastroenterology, respiratory disease, kidney disease, women's health, orthopedics, transplantation and surgery.