St. Mary Medical Center, the only Catholic hospital in
Long Beach, is a 539-bed not-for-profit medical center offering award-winning, quality medical services. St. Mary opened in 1923 as a 70-bed hospital under the sponsorship of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word. In 1996, St. Mary joined Catholic Healthcare West, the largest non-profit health care system in California, which operates 37 hospitals in California, Arizona and Nevada.
St. Mary serves as the only regional teaching hospital for the UCLA School of Medicine and offers medical students the opportunity to learn from advanced techniques and the latest approaches available.
St. Mary has also made its mark nationally as the nation's first hospital to fully integrate Patient-Focused Care, the first hospital-sponsored program to join the nation?s first managed care network for HIV-positive patients and one of only eight hospitals to participate in the pilot of the latest treatments of breast cancer.