City: Jefferson, LA

Category: Relocation

Telephone: (504) 842-3000

Address: 1516 Jefferson Hwy.

Description: Twins born in separate years? The birth of twins Timothy and Celeste Keys of New Orleans set a world record by being delivered 95 days apart. Timothy was delivered at Ochsner on October 15, 1994, followed by his sister, Celeste, on January 18, 1995. David Watkins, a 19-year-old Louisiana State University football player, made national headlines as well when he received a heart transplant at Ochsner, not only giving him the chance to survive but also enabling him to continue his education and the hope of one day returning to athletics. The odds were against 4-month-old Guillermo Rodriguez of Honduras living to see his first birthday. The infant was born with life-threatening congenital heart disease and time was running out. But the odds took a 180-degree turn when Rodriguez arrived at Ochsner for life-saving surgery in 1996, which was performed by pediatric cardiologist Dr. Albert Gutierrez.These and other success stories underscore the national and international reputation earned by this premiere health care facility, which opened its doors in early 1942 in a wooden complex known as “Splinter Village,” a former military hospital at the foot of the Huey P. Long Bridge. The five physicians and surgeons who founded Ochsner Clinic—Alton Ochsner, Guy Caldwell, Edgar Burns, Francis Le-Jeune, and Curtis Tyrone—were all eminent specialists and professors at Tulane University School of Medicine. By 1946 the hospital had become a thriving multispecialty clinic and a nonprofit foundation responsible for running the hospital and directing the institution’s research and medical education programs. Today Ochsner includes seven hospitals, over 35 neighborhood health centers, 80 specialties, and more than 11,000 employees and 600 physicians. The main campus’s 443-bed teaching hospital is one of the largest non-university-based physician training centers in the country, serving not only the New Orleans community but also a large international patient base from South and Central America.