It is part of the Cedars-Sinai Health System, which includes other owned or affiliated hospitals and a network of local doctors' offices that display its name[5] along with research institutes in genetics, neurosurgery, cancer and cardiology.[6]
Cedars-Sinai focuses on biomedical research and technologically advanced medical education based on an interdisciplinary collaboration between physicians and clinical researchers.[13] The academic enterprise at Cedars-Sinai has research centers covering cardiovascular, genetics, gene therapy, gastroenterology, neuroscience, immunology, surgery, organ transplantation, stem cells, biomedical imaging, and cancer, with more than 500 clinical trials and 900 research projects currently underway (led by 230 principal investigators).[14][15]
Certified as a level I trauma center for adults and pediatrics, Cedars-Sinai trauma-related services range from prevention to rehabilitation and are provided in concert with the hospital's Department of Surgery.[16] Named after the Cedars of Lebanon and Mount Sinai, Cedars-Sinai's patient care is depicted in the Jewish Contributions to Medicine mural located in the Harvey Morse Auditorium.[17]
History
Entrance to old Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, 1956. The same building is now owned by the Church of Scientology.Cedars of Lebanon Hospital Hollywood
Cedars of Lebanon Hospital
Kaspare Cohn Hospital was founded in 1902, named for its major donor, a Jewish businessman[18] who later founded the bank that became Union Bank & Trust Company[19] and is now part of U.S. Bancorp.[20] The hospital's first superintendent, Sarah Vasen, was a graduate of the University of Iowa Medical School who had been the superintendent and obstetrician for the Jewish Maternity Home in Philadelphia.[21]
The hospital was intended to serve both the Jewish community and the patients of Jewish doctors, who were denied admitting privileges in other hospitals because of discrimination.[22]
In 1930, the hospital moved to a new building in Hollywood and changed its name to Cedars of Lebanon Hospital,[23] after the trees mentioned frequently in Scripture[24] and reputed to have medicinal properties.[25]
Mount Sinai Hospital
Cedars of Lebanon Art Deco grillwork.
Meanwhile, in 1918, the Bikur Cholim Society opened a two-room hospice, the Bikur Cholim Hospice, when the Great Influenza Pandemic hit the United States of America.[26] In 1921, the hospice relocated to an eight-bed facility in Boyle Heights and was renamed Bikur Cholim Hospital.[26] On November 7, 1926, it was renamed Mount Sinai Hospital and moved to a 50-bed facility on Bonnie Beach Place in Los Angeles.[23][26] Later, in 1950, a new Mount Sinai Hospital was built on land donated by Emma and Hyman Levine at 8700 Beverly Boulevard.[23] They had purchased 3.5 acres of land and donated the property to Mount Sinai Hospital under the auspices of their foundation.[27]
Merger of Cedars of Lebanon Hospital and Mount Sinai Hospital
Cedars of Lebanon and Mount Sinai hospitals merged in 1961 to form Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.[28][26][29] The unification of both hospitals was made necessary by population growth and modern medical progress. A donation of $4 million by the Max Factor Family Foundation allowed the construction of the main hospital building, which broke ground on November 5, 1972, and opened on April 3, 1976.[30] The new hospital was designed jointly by Albert C. Martin & Associates and Charles Luckman Associates.[31] The main contractor was Robert E. McKee, Inc.[32] While the main hospital buildings were being built the Thalians Mental Health Center also designed by Martin and Luckman was being constructed. The main contractor was the Del E. Webb Corporation, and the Thalians Center was completed in 1973.[33]
In 1994, the Cedars-Sinai Health System was established, constituting the Cedars-Sinai Medical Care Foundation, the Burns and Allen Research Institute, and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.[34] The Burns and Allen Research Institute, named for George Burns and his wife, Gracie Allen, is located inside the Barbara and Marvin Davis Research Building.[35] Opened in 1996, it houses biomedical research aimed at discovering genetic, molecular and immunological factors that trigger disease.[36][37][38][39][40][excessive citations]
In 2006, Cedars-Sinai added the Saperstein Critical Care Tower with 150 ICU beds.[36]
In 2008[update], Cedars-Sinai served 54,947 inpatients, 350,405 outpatients, and 77,964 visits to the emergency room.[41] Cedars-Sinai received high rankings in 11 of the 16 specialties, ranking in the top 10 for digestive disorders and in the top 25 for five other specialties as listed below.[42]
In 2013, Cedars-Sinai opened its 800,000-square-foot Advanced Health Sciences Pavilion, which consists of eight stories of program space located over a six-story parking structure, on the eastern edge of its campus at the corner of San Vicente Boulevard and Gracie Allen Drive. Designed by the architectural firm Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum, the pavilion brings patient care and translational research together in one site. The Advanced Health Sciences Pavilion houses the Cedars-Sinai's neurosciences programs, the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and Regenerative Medicine Institute laboratories, as well as outpatient surgery suites, an imaging area, and an education center.[43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][excessive citations]
George W. Schaeffer and Irina Schaeffer, who donated $20 million to the Smidt Heart Institute, were one of their most substantial philanthropic contributors.[52]
Rankings
In the 2025 U.S. News & World Report Best Hospital Rankings, Cedars-Sinai placed first in California and Los Angeles, and was nationally ranked in 11 adult specialties. The hospital was rated high-performing in 20 adult procedures and conditions. Newsweek and Statista recognized Cedars-Sinai as 34th globally in their 2025 World’s Best Hospitals ranking.[53][54][55][56]
Cedars-Sinai Los Angeles, Mark Goodson Building (2024)
Cedars-Sinai is one of the leading institutes for competitive research funding from the National Institutes of Health. As an international leader in biomedical research, it translates discoveries into successful treatments with global impact.[57] Cedars-Sinai investigators pair basic scientific research in areas of stem cell biology, immunology, neuroscience, and genetics, with clinical and translational discoveries, to continue advancing medical breakthroughs.[57] Total research expenditure in 2020–21 was $252 million.[58] In fiscal year 2021, Cedars-Sinai received $93 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health.[59]
Some notable research areas and organized research units at Cedars-Sinai are:[60]
Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
Biomanufacturing Center
Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Research Center
Cancer Research
Center for Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics
Center for Cardiac Arrest Prevention
Center for Integrated Research in Cancer and Lifestyle
Center for Neural Science and Medicine
Center for Outcomes Research and Education
Center for Space Medicine Research
Diabetes and Obesity Research
Digestive Diseases Research
Division of Informatics
Endocrinology Research
Genetics and Genomics Research
Heart Research
Imaging Research
Immunology and Infectious Diseases Research
Medically Associated Science and Technology
Neurosciences Research
Pulmonary Research
Regenerative Medicine Institute
Stem Cell Research
Surgery Research
Women's Health Research
Cedars-Sinai Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
The Cedars-Sinai Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (formerly known as Cedars-Sinai's Graduate Research Education division), established in 2008, is a graduate college at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. It offers PhD and Master's programs in Biomedical Sciences and healthcare fields.[61] There are more than 100 faculty, and over 150 enrollment; the Dean is Shlomo Melmed, MB, ChB, FRCP, MACP.[62]
The school offers programs at the Master's and Doctoral levels. Didactic lectures are conducted at the Pacific Design Center while research is conducted at the medical center, specifically at the Burns and Allen Research Institute (named for George Burns and his wife, Gracie Allen), which is located inside the Barbara and Marvin Davis Research Building on Cedars-Sinai campus.[35] Opened in 1996, it houses biomedical research aimed at discovering genetic, molecular and immunological factors that trigger disease.[36][63][38][39][40] In 2013 new research labs were created, when Cedars-Sinai opened its 800,000-square-foot Advanced Health Sciences Pavilion, which consists of eight stories of program space located over a six-story parking structure, on the eastern edge of its campus at the corner of San Vicente Boulevard and Gracie Allen Drive. Designed by the architectural firm Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum, the pavilion brings patient care and translational research together in one site. The Advanced Health Sciences Pavilion houses the Cedars-Sinai's neurosciences programs, the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and Regenerative Medicine Institute laboratories, as well as outpatient surgery suites, an imaging area, and an education center.[43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51]
PhD Program:
Biomedical Sciences
Master's Programs:
Magnetic Resonance in Medicine
Health Delivery Science
Regenerative Medicine
Professional Training Programs:
Postdoctoral Scientist Program
Clinical Scholars Program
Research Internship Program
Notable staff
Keith Black, Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery and Director of the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute, has performed over 4,000 brain surgeries and has made significant medical advances relating to neurosurgery.[64]
Bruce Gewertz, Surgeon-in-Chief, Chair of the Department of Surgery, Vice-Dean for Academic Affairs and Vice-President for Interventional Services.[65]
Jason H. Moore, Chair of the Department of Computational Biomedicine and Director of the Center for Artificial Intelligence Research and Education (CAIRE)
David Rimoin, chair of Pediatrics for 18 years, specialized in genetics and was a pioneer researcher in dwarfism and skeletal dysplasia. Together with Michael Kaback, he discovered the enzyme screening for Tay-Sachs disease, reducing the incidence of the deadly disease by 90 percent.[67]
Karine Sargsyan, physician, geneticist, and foresight scientist
William Shell was a director of Cardiac Rehabilitation at Cedars-Sinai.[68]
Esther Somerfeld-Ziskind, a neurologist and psychiatrist who was chair of the Department of Psychiatry.
In 2008, the twin daughters of actor Dennis Quaid were born prematurely and cared for at Cedars. They were accidentally given the wrong version of the blood thinner heparin, which had 1000 times the strength of the version intended.[71] The twins survived.[72]
The news was leaked to the website TMZ, which published it[73] before Quaid's extended family learned of it. The hospital promised an investigation into the leak.[71]
The California Department of Health Services investigated and cited failures "to adhere to established policies & procedures for safe medication use."[74] The resulting malpractice claim was settled out of court, and included a commitment by Cedars to introduce electronic record keeping, bedside bar coding and computerized physician-order entry systems to improve patient safety. The hospital also implemented additional procedures for pharmacy and nursing staff.[75]
Excess radiation during CT scans
From 2008 to 2009, 260 patients received excess radiation during CT brain perfusion scans, with the error discovered after a patient reported hair loss.[76] The FDA and California Department of Public Health launched investigations, and Cedars-Sinai implemented stricter protocols and provided care and apologies to affected patients.[77]
Patient data security breaches
On June 18 through June 24, 2013, six employees were terminated for inappropriately accessing 14 patient records around the time Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's daughter was born at the hospital.[78] On June 23, 2014, an unencrypted employee laptop was stolen from an employee's home. The laptop contained patient Social Security numbers and patient health data.[79]
Organ transplants for marijuana users
California allowed marijuana to be prescribed by physicians when Proposition 215 was approved in 1996.[80] Of the transplant programs using the United Network for Organ Sharing, many retained their existing protocols, which regarded users of drugs, including marijuana, as poor transplant candidates. As the regulated marijuana growing industry developed slowly, there was concern that patients would use the illicit market and the transplant would fail because of Aspergillus infection and cannabis contaminants such as PCP.[81] Aspergillus can cause a fatal lung infection in an immunocompromised liver transplant patient.[82]
The advocacy group Americans for Safe Access publicized two patients who were taken off the national waiting list by Cedars transplant programs because of their marijuana use. It emphasized that their prescriptions were written by doctors who were on staff at Cedars, not by any of the Venice Beach dope doctors.[83] The patients were later restored to the list, but at the end. One was seeking a new kidney,[84] the other a liver.[82]
The California legislature eventually prohibited eligibility decisions based on prescribed marijuana use.[85]
Art collection
First developed by philanthropists Frederick and Marcia Weisman, Cedars-Sinai's modern and contemporary art collection dates to 1976 and includes more than 4,000 original paintings, sculptures, new media installations and limited-edition prints by the likes of Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Diebenkorn, Sam Francis, Claes Oldenburg, Willem de Kooning, Raymond Pettibon and Pablo Picasso. At any given time, 90 to 95 percent of the collection is on display. Nine large-scale works are located in courtyards, parking lots, and public walkways throughout the approximately 30-acre campus. The collection consists entirely of gifts from donors, other institutions, and occasionally the artists themselves.[86]
There is a statue of Moses in the parking lot. However, the two tablets of the covenant that, according to the story, Moses received at Mount Sinai, are blank on the statue. This led many people to ask, "Why is Moses in the parking lot?" In response, the director of community engagement, Jonathan Schreiber, has given a brief lecture explaining the history of the statue's role in the hospital merger.[87]
↑"Cedars-Sinai Medical Center". UCLA CTSI. 16 December 2024. Retrieved 7 January 2026. Cedars is a major teaching facility of the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine.chool of Medicine at UCLA
↑"Union Bank of California". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2 January 2026. Kaspare Cohn Commercial & Savings Bank...In 1918, the name of the bank was changed to Union Bank & Trust Company
↑Aushenker, Michael (3 October 2002). "From TB to T-Cell". Jewish Journal. Retrieved 2 January 2026. Unfortunately, it was difficult for Jewish doctors to get on staff at other hospitals ... Even into the 1930s and 1940s, it became a place where Jews could practice when they couldn't get hired elsewhere because of anti-Semitism.
↑"Symbolism of Cedar". Bible Hub. The cedar, particularly the famed cedars of Lebanon, is frequently mentioned in Scripture, highlighting its importance in biblical times.
↑Kramer, Howard (12 August 2014). "CEDAR GROVES OF LEBANON". The Complete Pilgrim. Retrieved 2 January 2026. The trade in cedar wood permeated the Mediterranean world....When the Israelites arrived, it became prized for medicinal and religious purposes.
↑"Closing time for medical marijuana shops". Los Angeles Times. Newspapers.com. 7 Jun 2010. p.7. Retrieved 4 February 2026. The boardwalk takes beachgoers past … five doctors offices that write recommendations for marijuana. Most of the physicians have barkers who amaze tourists with their patter: 'Get legal today, folks. Walk-ins are welcome. Don't hesitate to medicate.'
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
