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Our History

Our philosophy of putting the patient first stems from a long tradition of being first when it comes to regional health care. In fact, St. Luke’s was the first hospital in the city of Duluth, founded by St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in 1881. It was a small room above a blacksmith’s shop, but the doors were open, and the typhoid epidemic that was ravaging the city was about to meet its match.

We’ve come a long way since our meager beginnings and have grown into a regional health care system large enough to provide the most advanced technologies and treatments, yet not so big that we forget that personalized care and attention are the hallmarks of our value system.

We’ve always put the patient above all else, and it’s this type of thinking that led, for example, to the area’s first alternative to traditional birthing rooms. It also brought about the first coordinated trauma program in the region—a program that earned St. Luke’s the honor of being the region’s first federally designated Regional Trauma Center, as well as the first to be verified by the American College of Surgeons as a Level II Trauma Center.

It is a history of firsts, and now, as a regional health care system with a hospital in Duluth and 31 primary and specialty clinics throughout northeastern Minnesota, northwestern Wisconsin and the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan, we will continue to lead health care in the region. And we will do it the way we always have–by putting the patient first.

 

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