Orthopaedic Hospital

History of Orthopaedic Hospital:
Adapting to the Times and True to Our Mission

Orthopaedic Hospital was founded by Charles LeRoy Lowman in 1911, beginning as a clinic for children with crippling disorders. Ever since, it has provided this care regardless of the family's financial circumstances. To support this mission, the Los Angeles Orthopaedic Hospital Foundation was established in 1917. Following that, in 1922 the first hospital completed construction. It was replaced by the second in 1959, and today the third is under construction. This new state-of-the-art facility is a cooperative effort with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as part of a Master Strategic Alliance to create the Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital. Combined with the new Orthopaedic Hospital Outpatient Medical Center on our downtown Los Angeles campus and the Orthopaedic Hospital Research Center on the UCLA Westwood campus, these facilities have the capacity to lead advancements in musculoskeletal patient care, research, and education world-wide.

When Dr. Charles Leroy Lowman established Orthopaedic Hospital in 1922, he scarcely could have imaged the astonishing strides that medicine would take through the end of the century.

As the only orthopaedic specialist between San Francisco to New Orleans, he saw patients with flat feet, knock-knees, bowlegs and spinal curvatures. Because the field was so new, he invented many treatments himself. In particular, he turned a fishpond on the Orthopaedic Hospital grounds into a therapy pool for children with polio, two years before polio sufferer Franklin Delano Roosevelt discovered the 88-degree waters at Warm Springs, Georgia.

Today, the Orthopaedic Hospital surgeons replace hip joints with advanced polymers and new metal-on-metal technology and transfer muscle from one part of the shoulder to another so children with brachial plexus palsy gain motion in their arms and can live normal lives. The staff treats children with congenital and acquired orthopaedic disorders in addition to providing treatment for cleft lip and palates, neurological disorders, urology disorders, sickle cell disease, hemophilia, and musculoskeletal tumors.

Since the time of Dr. Lowman, the orthopaedic program has grown dramatically to the point where Orthopaedic Hospital sees more children with potentially crippling disorders than any other facility in the United States.

Now, Orthopaedic Hospital has embarked on an extraordinary commitment to advance the quality of orthopaedic healthcare in the 21st century, with a strategic plan that includes the Orthopaedic Hospital Outpatient Medical Center in downtown Los Angeles, the Orthopaedic Hospital at Santa-Monica-UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, and the Orthopaedic Hospital Research Center in Westwood. The organization also has a strong relationship with the Orthopaedic Hospital Medical Magnet High School and provides assistance in curriculum design and teaching related to health science as well as onsight exposure to a wide variety of careers in healthcare and research.

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Previous patients of Orthopaedic Hospital have shared their stories and memories with us. Click here to read their stories.

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Patients at Figueroa Street Clinic, circa 1911

Orthopaedic Hospital, circa 1922

Dr. Lowman with a young patient

Nursing staff in the 1920's