'Guy's Hospital' is a large
NHS hospital in the
borough of Southwark in south east
London. It is administratively a part of 'Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust'. It is a large teaching hospital and is home to the
King's College London Schools of Medicine and Dentistry at Guy's, King's College and St Thomas's Hospitals (formerly known as the
GKT School of Medicine).
History to the current time
It was founded in
1721 by 'Sir
Thomas Guy' (1644/45-December 27 1724), a publisher who had made a fortune in the
South Sea Bubble. It was originally established as a hospital to treat "incurables" discharged from
St Thomas' Hospital.
Guy's has expanded over the centuries. The original buildings comprised a courtyard facing St Thomas Street, and an innner quadrangle. Despite substantial bomb damage during
World War II, the original 18th century chapel remains intact including the tomb of Thomas Guy with a very fine marble sculpture by
John Bacon.
A bequest of £200,000 by William Hunt in
1829, one of the largest charitable bequests in England in historic terms, allowed for a further hundred beds to be accommodated. Hunt's name was given to the southern expansion of the hospital buildings. These were replaced c.2000 by new academic buildings for King's College, known as New Hunt's House.
In 1974 the hospital added the 34 storey 'Guy's Tower'. At 143
metres (469 feet) high, this is the tallest hospital building in the world, and the 11th tallest building in
London. Guy's Tower is divided into two sections of which the top floors (floors 18-30) represent the dental school, where students of King's College London Dental School study and practice, and the lower floors (Ground-18) represent the medical departments.
The latest addition to the clinical buildings is Thomas Guy House, completed in
1995. This was originally to have been known as
Philip Harris House, but the benefactor withdrew his funding in protest at the enforced merger of Guy's with
St Thomas' Hospital
Over 8,000 staff work in Guy's Hospital and St Thomas' Hospital. They are two of the oldest teaching hospitals, nearly 900 years old, and they are situated right in the heart of the capital. One of the services that the trust provides is dental care, looking after over 120,000 patients a year.
The site
The site consists of 19 distinct, but interconnected, buildings with functions including public medical services, teaching, research and student residence.
The buildings which compose the campus are
[1]:
Major hospital buildings containing wards:
★ Guy's Tower
★ New Guy's House
★ Thomas Guy House
During 2007, the names of these blocks are likely to change to The Tower Wing, Borough Wing and Southwark Wing respectively. Research for the Trust's FACE wayfinding project identified that the similarity of current names led to widespread confusion for patients and visitors.
Other buildings:
★ Boland House
★ Capital House
★ The Chapel
★ Conybeare House
★ Doyles House
★ Greenwood Theatre
★ Henriette Raphael House
★ Hodgkin Building
★ New Hunt's House
★ Nuffield House
★ Nuffield Nurses' Home
★ Old Guy's House
★ Pavy Gym
★ Shepherd's House
★ Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases
★ Wolfson House
Guy's Dental Hospital
Guy's Hospital near London Bridge (5 mins walk from the overground/underground stations) is home to the largest dental hospital in Europe. Its services include routine dentistry, dental surgery, oral medicine and specialist dentistry. In addition Guy's also provides emergency dental services, and oral and facial surgery with the majority of work being performed by students.
Dental work involves dental surgeons, as well as dental nurses, dental hygenists, dental therapists and dental technicians; all of which are equally important to the efficiency of the hospital's dental care services.
Developments and changes
On
31 October 2005 children's departments at Guy's moved to the newly constructed
Evelina Children's Hospital.
The
Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases was built following a generous donation from the
Wolfson Foundation. This centre brings under one roof a number of research groups dedicated to improving outcomes of conditions including
Alzheimer's disease,
stroke,
Parkinson's disease and
spinal cord injury.
Famous physicians who worked at Guy's
★
Thomas Addison, discoverer of
Addison's disease
★
Thomas Hodgkin, discoverer of
Hodgkin's lymphoma
★
Richard Bright, discoverer of
Bright's disease
★ Sir
Astley Cooper, discoverer of the
Cooper's ligaments of the
breasts
★
Edward Cock, surgeon and nephew of Sir Astley Cooper
★ Sir
Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin and instructor of pathology
★ Sir
Samuel Wilks
★ Sir
Alfred Poland, the first to describe
Poland syndrome
★ Sir
Frederick Hopkins, discoverer of
vitamins
★ Sir
William Withey Gull, the first to describe
myxoedema
★
James Hinton, otologist
★
John Hilton, great
anatomist and surgeon
★
Humphry Osmond, psychiatrist who worked with
psychedelic drugs and coined the term
★
John Butterfield, Baron Butterfield
★
Frederick William Pavy, worked with Richard Bright, one of the founders and presidents of the
Medical and Chirurgical Society of London
★
John Braxton Hicks, obstetrician, discoverer of the Braxton Hicks
uterine contractions
★
Gerard Folliott Vaughan, UK
psychiatrist, who became a
politician and
minister of state during
Margaret Thatcher's government
★
James Jurin, early work on
epidemiology of the
smallpox vaccine
See also
★
Guy's Hospital Football Club founded in (1843) has a claim to being the
oldest (rugby) football club still in existence.
★
King's College London
★
Tall buildings in London
References
1. Guy's: detail map :Campus maps :King's College London
External links
★
Guy's & St Thomas' Charity
★
Wolfson Centre for Age Related Diseases