Source: United States Navy (Medical)
When the Naval Medical Center Washington relocated to Bethesda in Feb. 1942, it was comprised of three administrative units—the Naval Hospital (what would become Naval Hospital Bethesda), the Naval Medical School, and the Naval Dental School (now known as the Naval Postgraduate Dental School or NPDS).
Bethesda’s centerpiece, and its raison d’etre, however, has always been its hospital.
The hospital’s roots go back to the War of 1812 when the Navy established a makeshift medical facility in a rented farmhouse near the Washington Navy Yard. Over the next 50 years, the “Naval Hospital Washington,” as it was known, operated out of several temporary quarters both near and on the Washington Navy Yard and even at the St. Elizabeth’s Hospital property before a “permanent facility” was established on ninth and Pennsylvania Avenue, S.E. This building, which is still standing today and now part of the Hill Center, served as the Naval Hospital Washington, D.C., from 1866 until 1906 when the hospital, needing larger space to accommodate patients, relocated to a hilltop in Foggy Bottom. The new site had formerly served as the home of the Naval Observatory (1844 to 1893) and had been home to the Naval Medical School since May 1902.
On June 28, 1935, by Navy General Order No. 70, the hospital and the Naval Medical School were designated the “Naval Medical Center Washington, D.C.” The Naval Dental School remained a subordinate activity of the Naval Medical School until April 1, 1936, when the Secretary of the Navy elevated it to a separate administrative unit.
From the beginning, the Naval Hospital Washington, D.C., existed to provide definitive care for Sailors and Marines based in the nation’s capital. The hospital’s location, and its role as a top-tier federal medical facility, also ensured that many of those who were admitted included leaders of the Navy and Marine Corps as well as congressmen, Supreme Court justices, U.S. presidents and vice presidents. The hospital’s role in executive care further expanded after relocating to Bethesda so that all “authorized” government officials were eligible for medical services, including the “president, vice president, members of the cabinet, Article III federal judges, U.S. Court of Military Appeal judges, members of Congress, foreign heads of state and other foreign nationals as designated by the Secretary of the Navy.”
From the 1940s to today, Bethesda has been best known by the moniker, “The President’s Hospital.” And almost every president since Franklin Roosevelt has received some form of medical care there, whether outpatient care and annual check-ups or, in the cases of Presidents Lyndon Baines Johnson and Ronald Reagan, surgical procedures.
In 1965, President Johnson had kidney stones and his gallbladder removed at Bethesda. And to squash rumors in the press that he had cancer and open-heart surgery, Johnson held a press conference at Bethesda on October 20, 1965 whereby he famously lifted “his blue sport shirt on camera” showing his gallbladder scar. As a journalist for Time magazine later reported, the president “let the whole world inspect the ugly twelve-inch seam under his right rib cage.”
President Ronald Reagan underwent four operations at Bethesda including colon and skin cancer procedures. A Navy nurse who stayed with Reagan in the hospital’s presidential suite the night before his colon cancer surgery in 1985, later recalled that night:
“Mrs. Reagan stayed until about 9 o’clock. President Reagan then got a little quiet and I went in to check on him and asked if he needed anything. He didn’t want to watch TV. He said he preferred to read. And so, I asked him if I could get him a book and he said, ‘There’s a book there on the bedside table.’ I picked it up and it was a book of poetry, The Cremation of Sam McGee, [by Robert Service,] the very long, epic poem. And then he looked at me and he goes, ‘I’m a little nervous about tomorrow.’ When he said that I realized that he’s like any other patient who is going to face major surgery.
“So, I sat down and got the sense he wanted to talk a little bit. We had a really nice talk. He asked me where I was born and where I grew up and what my family was like. And then he goes, ‘I think I’d like to read for a while.’ So, I handed him the book and he says, ‘No, you hold the book. I’m going to read to you.’ He then recited The Cremation of Sam McGee from memory for me, to me. That was his way of relaxing. I remember it was just he and I in the room, no one else. The Secret Service detail was outside, and it is now about 10 o’ clock at night, and then he just sighed and said, ‘I feel better. I can get some sleep now.’ Reciting that poem to someone was something that helped him relax. And then the next morning he went right into surgery. I stayed with him through the next night and during his recovery for the next week.”
First ladies have long come to Bethesda for medical exams and procedures, most famously Betty Ford and Nancy Reagan. Both first ladies were diagnosed with breast cancer and later underwent successful mastectomies at the hospital.
Bethesda has also been marked by high-profile tragedies, perhaps none more so than the death of James Forrestal (1892-1949), the nation’s first Secretary of Defense (SECDEF).
From his days as Secretary of the Navy in World War II and later as SECDEF, Forrestal was well-known for his “unending” workdays and intensity. Following a mental breakdown, Forrestal was analyzed at Bethesda by Col. William Menninger, Medical Corps, U.S. Army, and Capt. George Raines, Medical Corps, USN, who diagnosed him with a severe-type of depression or what was referred to as, “a reactive depression.” Secretary Forrestal was initially treated in the psychiatric ward at a lower level of the hospital tower, but upon the request of President Harry Truman, he was moved to the VIP suite on the 16th floor. It was from there on May 22, 1949, that Forrestal broke through a kitchen window and jumped to his death, landing on the third-floor roof.
Despite this rare tragedy, the story of executive care at Bethesda has been wholly one of triumph. The expertise of providers and quality of medical care has been—and remains—top-tier, and it is no surprise that many foreign leaders and dignitaries have, also, come to the hospital for life-saving care. One notable example is the legendary singer Umm (Om) Kulthum (1898-1975), the “Egyptian Nightingale.”
Kalthum was—and remains today—a national icon in Egypt. In 1953, when her singing career was threatened by a large growth in her throat, Kalthum came to Bethesda for treatment, becoming the first non-military foreign dignitary ever admitted to the hospital. Within two months after her treatment, Kalthum was “completely cured” and returned to performing. In an interview with the Egyptian press, dated Sep. 1953, Kalthum praised the medical care she received and remarked that Bethesda was “the grandest hospital in America where one can find the most genius doctors in the world.”
Sources:
“An interview with Um Kalsoum after her return from the United States.” (Sep. 28, 1953). Al Zaman. Accessed from BUMED Correspondence Files, Record Group 52, National Archives II in College Park, Maryland.
Bowen, E.C. (1984) Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland (1939-1984). Naval Medical Command, National Capital Region. Bethesda, Maryland.
Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (u.p. 1946). “Naval Hospital Bethesda.” Administrative History of the U.S. Medical Department in World War II.
Caroli, B.B. (2015). Lady Bird and Lyndon: The Hidden Story of a Marriage that Made a President, Simon & Schuster.
Deppisch, L.M. (2007). The White House Physician: A History from Washington to George W. Bush, McFarland & Company, Inc.
Hoopes, T. and Brinkley, D. (1992). Driven Patriot: The Life and Times of James Forrestal. Naval Institute Press.
Malone, Tracy, CAPT, NC, USN. Oral History. (Conducted by A.B. Sobocinski, May 29, 2015). BUMED.
Singer’s cure boosts atom use in peace (1953, Feb 12). The Washington Post and Times, p. 9.
