1960 to 1975

Dallas Moves into Leadership in Medicine

Parkland Memorial Hospital became a leader in burn care, with the 1962 opening one of the largest adult civilian burn units in the nation. The nation’s attention focused on Parkland in 1963, when President John F. Kennedy died in Parkland’s Trauma Room 1. St. Paul moved into a new building on Harry Hines Blvd.—just down the street from Southwestern Medical School and Parkland—in 1964. More new hospitals continued to open: Presbyterian Hospital (1966), and a new Children’s Medical Center (1967) adjacent to Parkland. In 1971, Southwestern Medical School began an enormous building project, completing five new buildings in about four years. In 1972, Southwestern Medical School reorganized as the University of Texas Health Science Center at Dallas, with a Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and a School of Allied Health Science in addition to the medical school. By 1975, Dallas was well on its way to becoming a leader in medical care and biomedical research.