Charité

Berlin

The Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin is a large teaching hospital in Berlin, affiliated with both Humboldt University and Freie Universität Berlin. With numerous Collaborative Research Centers (CRC) of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Charité is one of Germany's most research-intensive medical institutions. For the past three years (2012 to 2014), Charité has been ranked by Focus as the best of over 1000 hospitals in Germany.

History

Complying with an order of King Frederick I of Prussia from November 14, 1709, the hospital was established north of the Berlin city walls in 1710 in anticipation of an outbreak of the bubonic plague that had already depopulated East Prussia. After the plague spared the city, it came to be used as a charity hospital for the poor. On January 9, 1727 Frederick William I of Prussia gave it the name Charité, meaning "charity". The construction of an anatomical theatre in 1713 marks the beginning of the medical school, then supervised by the collegium medico-chirurgicum of the Prussian Academy of Sciences.

After the University of Berlin (today Humboldt University) had been founded in 1810, the dean of the medical college Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland integrated the Charité as a teaching hospital in 1828.

Organization

The Charité has four different campuses across the city of Berlin:

   Campus Charité Mitte (CCM) in Berlin-Mitte
   Campus Benjamin Franklin (CBF) in Berlin-Lichterfelde (formerly "Klinikum Steglitz")
   Campus Virchow Klinikum (CVK) in Berlin-Wedding
   Campus Berlin Buch (CBB) in Berlin-Buch

• Campus Virchow Klinikum (CVK)

• German Heart Center Berlin (Deutsches Herzzentrum Berlin)

• Campus Benjamin Franklin (CBF)

In 2001, the Helios Clinics Group acquired the hospitals in Buch with its 1,200 beds.[citation needed] Still, the Charité continues to use the campus for teaching and research and has more than 300 staff members located there. The Charité encompasses more than 100 clinics and scientific institutes, organized in 17 different departments, referred to as Charité Centers (CC):

   CC 1: Health and Human Sciences
   CC 2: Basic Sciences (First Year)
   CC 3: Dental, Oral and Maxillary Medicine
   CC 4: Therapy and Research
   CC 5: Diagnostic Laboratory and Preventative Medicine
   CC 6: Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology and Nuclear Medicine
   CC 7: Anesthesiology, Operating-Room Management and Intensive Care Medicine
   CC 8: Surgery
   CC 9: Traumatology and Reconstructive Medicine
   CC 10: Charité Comprehensive Cancer Center
   CC 11: Cardiovascular Diseases
   CC 12: Internal Medicine and Dermatology
   CC 13: Internal Medicine, Gastroenterology and Nephrology
   CC 14: Tumor Medicine
   CC 15: Neurology, Neurosurgery, Psychiatry
   CC 16: Audiology/Phoniatrics, Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology
   CC 17: Gynecology, Perinatal, Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine with Perinatal Center & Human Genetics

Overall, 13 of those centers focus on patient care, while the rest focuses on research and teaching. The Medical History Museum Berlin has a history dating back to 1899. The museum in its current form opened in 1998 and is famous for its pathological and anatomical collection.