8. short history of Houston Medical Center

Points of interest are shown on this map and in this photo album

Created in 1946, in a little over fifty years, the Texas Medical Center achieved national and international leadership in education, research, and patient care, especially in the fields of heart disease, cancer, and rehabilitation. A major force in the Houston economy, the Texas Medical Center grew into the largest medical center in the world, with 2.1 square miles housing 61 member institutions, including 21 hospitals, 8 specialty institutions, 8 academic and research institutions, 4 medical schools, 7 nursing schools, 3 public health organizations, 2 pharmacy schools and a dental school. The Texas Medical Center employs over 106,000 people, hosts 10 million patient encounters annually, and has a gross domestic product of $25 billion. Medical center researchers received Nobel prizes in medicine in 1997 and 1998. As of 2014, the Texas Medical Center by itself ranked as the 8th-largest downtown business district in the United States

Anderson, Clayton and Company, co-founded by Monroe D. Anderson in 1904, eventually grew into the world's largest cotton merchandiser, making substantial fortunes for the principals. To avoid having to liquidate the company to pay estate taxes on their deaths, each partner set up a tax-exempt foundation receiving the bulk of their estate. Anderson left an estate of $19,000,000 on his death in 1939.

In 1941, when the Texas Legislature authorized $500,000 to build a cancer hospital, the enterprising Anderson Foundation trustees secured the hospital by offering to match the state’s money and provide twenty acres for the hospital. Dr. William D. Bertner was appointed acting director of M. D. Anderson Hospital. Bertner had initially struggled with his grades in medical school but eventually succeeded. Jesse Jones brought Bertner to Houston as house physician in the Rice Hotel; Bertner had treated Jones in New York. Bertner built a successful practice in Houston and in 1935 became Chief of Staff at Hermann Hospital and Jefferson Davis Hospital.

By 1943, Bertner and Ben Taub brought half the faculty of Baylor University’s struggling College of Medicine from Dallas into its new home in the Medical Center. Baylor was given land and startup funding by the Foundation. The Baylor faculty was led by Dean Walter Moursund, remembered in Moursund Street in the Medical Center.

In 1944, the city of Houston gave the Foundation a 134-acre site to support further development of medical facilities.

In 1946, the M. D. Anderson Foundation established the Texas Medical Center and named Bertner as the organization's first president. Bertner’s vision played the key role in creating and building the medical center; it was primarily Bertner who saw the advantages of bringing together all aspects of medical education and patient care in one physical location, and he led the trustees to create the Medical Center. Under Bertner’s extraordinary leadership, the Medical Center developed quickly, with additional funding from the M. D. Anderson foundation, other private donors and the land donated by the City of Houston. By 1948, Bertner had three more hospitals under construction; Hermann Hospital, Methodist Hospital, and the Shriners’ Hospital for Crippled Children. Bertner is memorialized by Bertner Street in the medical center. Later, the Medical Center acquired additional land and has continued to build and grow without interruption to its enormous size in the present day.