VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: University Medical Center Hospital is Run by a University
Posted on: August 4, 2025, 07:18h.
Last updated on: August 4, 2025, 05:01h.
The University Medical Center of Southern Nevada (UMC) — where you might be rushed if you’re seriously injured while visiting the Strip — has never been nationally ranked in the annual U.S. News & World Report evaluation of best American hospitals in any adult or pediatric specialty. It is also rated below average by Healthgrades, based on Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey data, with only 57% of patients recommending it.
But don’t university-owned hospitals typically provide superior care?
Yes, but UMC is not owned or operated by a university. Despite its name, it is a county hospital. It serves as the primary teaching hospital for the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV. But it was founded by the Clark County Commission, which still owns and operates it. (Its members also serve as its board of trustees.)
UNLV’s affiliation with UMC didn’t even begin until its medical school accepted its first students in 2017. For 31 years before that, since the Clark County Commission changed the name of Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital to University Medical Center, there was no real “U” in UMC.
The name was aspirational, and somewhat misleading, like naming your sandwich shop “Michelin Starred Deli.”
Hospi-tale
UMC was established in 1931 as Clark County Indigent Hospital, a 20-bed facility on a dirt road 2.5 miles west of the railroad station where Las Vegas was founded. It had one doctor and one nurse.
The hospital’s mission was to serve the poor. The construction of Hoover Dam spurred an influx of workers to Southern Nevada, increasing demand for medical care, particularly among the low-income and uninsured.
By 1940, Clark County Indigent Hospital underwent its first of several major expansions. When it emerged, it was renamed Clark County General. (The “indigent” was limiting its appeal to the city’s burgeoning middle class.)
But county hospitals weren’t as highly regarded as private ones. Funded by local taxes and government budgets, they frequently operated with limited resources. So, to stay competitive with the recently opened Rose de Lima Hospital (today’s Dignity Health — St. Rose Dominican), the Clark County Commission again rebranded its hospital, as Southern Nevada Memorial, in 1950.
Code Blue
By the 1980s, Southern Nevada Memorial had become outdated and faced criticism for its inconsistent care quality and long wait times.
In February 1986, the Clark County Commission voted to rebrand its hospital for the third time — in a more misleading way than ever before.
It would now be University Medical Center of Southern Nevada.
Emblazoned across its modern campus, this name suggested the higher care and cutting-edge medical practices of teaching hospitals.
Which it wasn’t.
UMC eventually attracted an affiliation with University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine (UNR SOM), but that was a very limited one that didn’t begin until at least eight years after its final rebrand.
Established in 1969 as Nevada’s first medical school, UNR SOM operated primarily in Reno but offered a small Las Vegas clinical campus for third- and fourth-year medical students beginning in the ’90s. It was more of a practical arrangement for student rotations rather than a structured partnership.
The affiliation was so tenuous, UMC was happy to shrug it off for the first substantial one to come along. In August 2016, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education approved the transfer of all Las Vegas-based residencies and fellowships from UNR SOM to UNLV.
UNLV’s medical school matriculated its first class in 2017, though the students couldn’t do their first UMC rounds until around 2019.
Even today, though, UNLV isn’t really the “U” in UMC, since the hospital remains a public facility owned and operated by a county government.
Only about 100 of the 1,400 teaching hospitals in the US are owned and operated by county governments. And only three were ever nationally ranked by U.S. News & World Report: Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in LA, John H. Stronger Hospital of Cook County in Chicago, and Parkland Health & Hospital System in Dallas.
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Last Comments ( 4 )
It’s easy to poop on things when you have little to bo experience with them. UMC is doing just fine — the only Level 1 Trauma Center in the state. And the neighboring Valley Hospital saved my wife’s life with a 12 hour emergency surgery that only 2% of those who suffer her situation survive. You can talk snide smack all you want, you can get on a plane to leave Vegas for medical care if you want. But when you do, maybe it’s time to stay away.
No, it's not one sided. I'm from a large academic medical center elsewhere. Nevada is seriously behind and Vegas more so in terms of advanced medical care. Medicine in Vegas is a business, do not kid yourself. Now, with UNLV and soon Roseman medical schools, that may change, but it will take 2 generations at least. For now, the best place for healthcare in Vegas, on average, is McCarren.
Flew into LV last December when things are slow. Struck up a conversation with the guy in the car rental center who verifies your documents before you're good to go - two old guys shooting the breeze, go figure. I told him that I'd been visiting for 30 years and often thought about moving here to escape New England winters, but I'd heard that the health care in LV wasn't the greatest. "That's not true", he said. "In fact, did you know that the best health care in the entire valley is right here at the airport?". I guess he noticed the puzzled expression on my face. "That's because whatever plane you get on, you'll land somewhere that isn't Las Vegas." Even with that friendly piece of advice I'm still online, looking for a nice condo to eventually retire to!!!
one sided story. they just were accredited to run their own residency with students starting next year. they now have robotics, etc. the only level one trauma in the state with an incredible survival rate, pediatric trauma, the only accredited burn center, the only transplant center, they train the military physicians to prepare them for battlefield medicine…the list goes on. no i don’t work there. during the 1 october mass shooting not a single patient died who arrived there. https://www.ktnv.com/news/revamped-umc-prioritizes-advanced-tech-trauma-care-and-training-the-next-generation-of-doctors