The hospital was organized in 1940 as Charlotte Memorial Hospital on Blythe Boulevard in the
Dilworth neighborhood. Since that time, the hospital has undergone several major expansions, bringing the licensed bed capacity to 874 beds. In May 1970, the organ Transplant program began with the first cadaveric kidney transplant performed by Dr. Don Mullen and Dr. Dale Ensor. This was one of the first transplants in the USA done outside a medical school setting. A year later, Mullen and Ensor performed the first living related transplant. Dr. Francis Robicsek performed the first
heart transplant at Carolinas Medical Center in 1986. In 2007, the multistory
Levine Children's Hospital was completed and opened, making it the second largest children's hospital in the Southeastern United States, after
Washington, D.C. In 2010, the
University of North Carolina School of Medicine established the Charlotte Campus of the UNC School of Medicine at Carolinas Medical Center. Students from UNC School of Medicine had been completing clinical rotations at Carolinas Medical Center for over 40 years prior. On July 28, 2011, ''
Becker's Hospital Review'' listed Carolinas Medical Center under 60 Hospitals with Great Orthopedic Programs. In October 2020,
Wake Forest School of Medicine and
Atrium Health began an agreement to make Carolinas Medical Center one of its flagship teaching hospitals along with the creation of a Charlotte campus of its medical school. In July 2023, Carolinas Medical Center broke ground on a nearly $900 million, 1.1 million square foot expansion that includes an emergency center and 484 new patient rooms, 38 operating rooms, and 16 procedure rooms to be completed in 2027. Today, Carolinas Medical Center is the region's only Level 1 Trauma Center and part of
Atrium Health, one of the largest public not-for-profit
healthcare systems in the United States. == References ==