Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is an academic medical center located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It is the largest employer in Forsyth County with more than 13,440 employees and a total of 198 buildings on 428 acres. The entity includes: Wake Forest Baptist Health, its clinical enterprise Wake Forest School of Medicine, its teaching and research arm Wake Forest Innovations, an operating division that drives innovation through partnerships, education, licensing and start-ups. The medical center is ranked for 2015-16 by U.S. News & World Report as among the nation’s best hospitals in seven areas: Cancer, Ear, Nose & Throat, Gastroenterology & GI Surgery, Nephrology, Neurology & Neurosurgery, Pulmonology and Urology. It is ranked as high performing in five additional adult specialties: Cardiology and Heart Surgery, Diabetes and Endocrinology, Geriatrics, Gynecology and Orthopedics. Brenner Children's Hospital, a 144-bed "hospital within a hospital" at the medical center, is nationally ranked in Orthopedics by U.S. News & World Report.HistoryWake Forest College Medical School was founded as a two-year medical school on the campus of Wake Forest College in Wake Forest, N.C., in 1902. North Carolina Baptist Hospital was established in 1923 as an 88-bed community hospital in Winston-Salem. The will of a president of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. gave about $750,000 to move the medical school to Winston-Salem and make it a four-year institution. Named after its benefactor, Bowman Gray School of Medicine opened in Winston-Salem in 1941, affiliating with N.C. Baptist Hospital to create "the Miracle on Hawthorne Hill."Brenner Children's Hospital, a 144-bed "hospital within a hospital," opened in 1986. In 1997, the institutions realigned as Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. In 2011, as part of the institution's move to become a unified structure, the corporate entity was rebranded as Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. Clinical operations throughout a 24-county service area in northwest North Carolina and southwest Virginia now fall under the umbrella of Wake Forest Baptist Health, and the academic component is now known as Wake Forest School of Medicine.