A long time ago, there were not many hospitals in North Minneapolis. Oh, there was Dr. Cranmer’s little hospital in Camden and there was Hopewell Hospital for tubercular patients, but if you needed the care of a large hospital, you had to go into town — close to the center of Minneapolis.
People really didn’t like having to go downtown, but the doctors themselves preferred having the hospitals centrally located to keep travel time between them short. So, who would ever think of putting a hospital in an outlying district? It was in 1939, when I was a teenager, that I first heard that someone was planning to build a hospital up the “Drive” — close to where a Dairy Queen was located. It was viewed as a big risk to build a hospital out in the “boonies.” But there was one doctor who had the foresight to realize that the area was likely to build up into a large residential and commercial area.
This risk taker was Dr. Samuel Samuelson, who built the hospital on the current site and named it Victory Hospital. Fifteen years later, in 1954, a group of community-minded local businessmen reorganized the hospital as a private, non-profit hospital and renamed it North Memorial Hospital.
Coming upon the scene now was a 30-year-old man named Vance De Mong. He was brought in to be the hospital’s first administrator. The reason he was chosen was that he was a forward- thinking person, aggressive, and had a very hands-on knowledge about all the departments. He seemed to be 10 years ahead of himself at all times. His biggest passion, one that really put North Memorial on the map, was emergency service. He was fascinated by ambulances, trauma and emergency care. With its reputation for excellent emergency service, the hospital grew from 30 beds in 1954 to 60 beds in 1956, 302 beds in 1963, and 504 beds in 1970.
Along the way, the hospital became a full-service health care provider, serving the needs of more than a million people! And in addition to emergency care, North Memorial now boasts state-of-the art heart, cancer and birthing centers and six primary care clinics.
Scott Anderson joined the hospital in 1964 and became President and CEO of North Memorial in 1981. He told about some of the significant events in the hospital’s history. He said that when he came there they had three ambulances and now they have 115. “The acquisition of the CT scanner in the ‘70s was another high point. We had the only one in town. The CT scanner helped assess brain injuries and revolutionized diagnosis for head trauma. As the X-ray and radiation field has evolved, we have always played a leadership role and continue to be a leading technological organization in terms of implementing new diagnosis techniques.”
“Our independence has served us well over the years. Our approach is more like a “family business” rather than a corporation. Other places doctors go from place to place. But here, this is where they do their work, and our attending physicians get to know the people.”
So, with the excellent staff of personnel, including doctors and nurses, all the building additions that have gone on over the years and all the services North Memorial provides, it is truly one of the “gems of the Northside!”
Note: Information taken from the Special 50th Anniversary edition of the North Memorial Monthly newsletter Images, which was written in May of 2004, and was supplied to me by Mark Vukelich.