Roosevelt selected the site of the hospital, laid the cornerstone, and made formal dedication remarks at the hospital's opening on November 11, 1940. Both would eventually be patients at the hospital again.įranklin D. President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan wave from a Bethesda hospital window after his cancer surgery in 1985. On May 22, 1949, former Secretary of the Navy and first Secretary of Defense James Forrestal died by suicide after jumping from the 16th floor of the hospital tower. In 1945, at the end of World War II, temporary buildings were added to accommodate up to 2,464 wounded American sailors and marines. The original Medical Center was composed of the Naval Hospital, designed to hold 1,200 beds, and the Naval Medical School, the Naval Dental School (now the National Naval Dental Center) and the Naval Medical Research Institute. President Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the Tower on Armistice Day, November 11, 1940. Ground was broken by John McShain Builders for the Naval Medical Center on June 29, 1939, by Rear Admiral Percival S. Roosevelt selected the present site in Bethesda, Maryland, on July 5, 1938, and designed the exterior of the building. In 1938, the United States Congress appropriated funds for the acquisition of land for the construction of a new naval medical center, and President Franklin D.

In 2011, the Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC), named after yellow fever researcher Walter Reed, was combined with the National Naval Medical Center to form the tri-service Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. metropolitan area and the United States, having served numerous U.S. military medical centers in the Washington, D.C. The Walter Reed National Military Medical Center ( WRNMMC), formerly known as the National Naval Medical Center and colloquially referred to as the Bethesda Naval Hospital, Walter Reed, or Navy Med, is a United States' tri-service military medical center, located in the community of Bethesda, Maryland, near the headquarters of the National Institutes of Health.

Gundry sanitarium