Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas (Texas Health Dallas, Presbyterian, or Presby) is a teaching hospital and tertiary care facility in the
United States, located in the
Vickery Meadow area of
Dallas,
Texas.[2] It is the flagship institution of 29 hospitals in
Texas Health Resources, the largest healthcare system in
North Texas and one of the largest in the
United States. The hospital, which opened in 1966, has 875 beds and around 1,200 physicians.[1] The hospital is the largest business within Vickery Meadow.[3] In 2008, the hospital implemented a program in which critical care physician specialists are available to patients in the medical and surgical
intensive care units 24 hours a day, eliminating
ventilator-associated
pneumonia, central line infections and
pressure ulcers.[4] The hospital has maintained an active
internal medicine residency training program since 1977, and hosts rotating medical students from
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
Ebola virus outbreak
In 2014, the hospital was thrust into the national spotlight as the site of the first
Ebola case diagnosed in the United States (see
Ebola incident).[5] One patient,
Thomas Eric Duncan, who allegedly told healthcare workers there that he had recently traveled from Liberia, was not initially diagnosed with Ebola, but sent home. When he continued to become sicker he returned to the hospital, where his Ebola was correctly diagnosed, but he died of the disease. Two nurses who had treated this patient, Nina Pham and Amber Joy Vinson, subsequently contracted Ebola. Ms. Vinson had flown from Dallas to Ohio and back before she was diagnosed with Ebola, potentially exposing a number of other people to the disease in the meantime.[citation needed]
Notable patients
John McClamrock - American high school
football player injured during a game and paralyzed for the remainder of his life.[6]
George W. Bush (43rd President of the United States) successfully received a stent here in a surgical procedure after a blockage was found in an artery during a physical examination at
Dallas's
Cooper Clinic.[7]
Greer Garson - Academy Award Winning Actress. In her final years, Garson occupied a penthouse suite at the Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. She died there from heart failure on April 6, 1996, at the age of 91.[8] She is interred beside her late husband in the Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery in Dallas.
Thomas Eric Duncan - First patient diagnosed with
Ebola virus disease, and first person to develop
Ebola in the United States, in late September 2014.[9] The hospital sent him home after he allegedly told them he had just been to an Ebola infected area.[10] After he returned to the hospital and was admitted, two nurses caught Ebola from Mr. Duncan, and were treated at the hospital as well. Nurse
Nina Pham, the first person to contract Ebola in the United States, was transferred to the
National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD.[11] Nurse
Amber Joy Vinson was transferred to
Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, GA.[12] Anonymous nurses later allege that during Duncan's time of eventual treatment there had been neither established protocol to follow nor sufficient protective gear.[13]
In Popular Culture
Exteriors of the 1966 hospital building were used extensively in the original nighttime drama
Dallas. The building represented the fictional Dallas Memorial Hospital during on location filming and in establishing shots during Seasons 2, 3 & 4 of the series which included record high rated episodes related to
Who shot J.R.? storyline.