August 14, 1846
Dr. Richard Cooper and five other physicians founded the District Medical Society of the County of Camden, later known as the Camden County Medical Society.
1853
Dr. Richard Cooper, along with other physicians, established the Camden City Medical Society, often called the younger sister of the Camden County Medical Society. During a meeting of the Society, these physicians first discussed creating a City Dispensary to provide medical care for Camden’s poor.
August 10, 1887
Cooper Hospital officially opened its doors. There were eight doctors on staff – four physicians and four surgeons. On opening day, doctors treated seven patients at the hospital. The next day, the hospital welcomed its first overnight patient, and surgeons performed their first operation – a tumor removal.
1890
The Training School for Nurses at the Cooper Hospital officially welcomed its first four students. Some of the school’s early lectures and topics included medical nursing, obstetrical nursing, dietetics, and anatomy and physiology.
1911
Construction of Cooper Hospital’s first outpatient building – a three-story wing connected to the hospital’s original building – was completed. The first floor housed medical and eye, nose, and throat clinics, as well as gynecological and surgical clinics. On the second and third floors, private and semi private rooms were designed for the care of private patients.
1927
The Ann Canning Building opened with private and semi-private patient rooms, an emergency department, and a commercial hospital kitchen.
1930s
The Great Depression strained hospital finances and resources, yet Cooper continued to offer care, increase its bed count, and open a number of free clinics to serve the community throughout the national economic downturn.
1935
The Nurses’ Training School enrolled 109 student nurses and a new Cooper Hospital Medical Library opened to provide resources to staff.
1945
The 61st Station Hospital Unit from Cooper arrived home, recognized as one of the few, if not the only, hospital units to stay intact throughout the entire war.
1954 to 1964
Cooper’s “Decade of Development” included a food service building, employee cafeteria, bassinet nursery for premature babies, air-conditioned delivery suite, living quarters for residents and on-call physicians, and renovations to the accident ward and outpatient departments.
September 11, 1959
The last patient in the original Cooper building transferred to the Dorrance south wing, marking the first time there were no patients in the original hospital building since 1887.
1961
With the addition of the Dorrance wings, Cooper became the largest not-for-profit hospital in New Jersey at that time.
1964
The Women’s Auxiliary became the Women’s Board, and celebrated having raised $1 million for Cooper Hospital.
1965
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law, a concept supported by Cooper to help provide care to indigent patients.
1976
After four years of planning, Cooper broke ground for a new 10-story, $38 million main building on the site of the original hospital. The Kelemen Building opened in March 1979. It was named for board member Frank Kelemen, who was credited with much of Cooper’s transformation during this time.
1977
Cooper Hospital signed an agreement to become the clinical campus of the University of Medicine and Dentistry/Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. The medical school affiliation advanced Cooper University Hospital as the major teaching hospital in South Jersey.
1986
An outpatient medical office facility, Three Cooper Plaza, opened along with an adjacent parking garage.
1996
Cooper University Hospital transformed into The Cooper Health System, reflecting its status as an academic, tertiary care, integrated health care delivery system.
2008
A new hospital building, the 10-story Roberts Pavilion, opened. For the first time, the hospital’s front entrance and lobby shifted from Haddon Avenue to Martin Luther King Boulevard.
2012
After several decades of discussions, the first new medical school in New Jersey opened on the Cooper Health Sciences campus. Developed in partnership with Rowan University, Cooper Medical School of Rowan University graduated its first class in 2016.
2013
Cooper University Health Care partnered with the nation’s leading cancer center, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, creating MD Anderson Cancer Center at Cooper across Haddon Avenue from the main hospital.
2014
KIPP Cooper Norcross Academy at Lanning Square broke ground. The K-8 school was established under the Urban Hope Act, legislation to create a pilot program that would provide students in three struggling school districts—Camden, Newark and Trenton– access to new, quality public schools in their communities.
April 2017
Cooper and Deborah Heart and Lung Center joined forces to launch HeroCare Connect, providing concierge specialty services for local active duty military, retirees, veterans, and their families.
May 24, 2017
Three Cooper Plaza was renamed the Sheridan Pavilion in honor of former Cooper President and CEO John Sheridan and his wife, Joyce.
July 2017
The Cooper Foundation received an anonymous $22 million gift from a grateful patient to fund specialized research exploring the role of a unique line of stem cells in certain cancers, wound healing, and vision.