UAB Hospital (also known as University Hospital) is a 1,157 bed tertiary hospital and academic health science center located in Birmingham, Alabama. It serves as the only ACS verified Level I Trauma Center in Alabama, and is the flagship property of the UAB Health System which is owned by the University of Alabama System. The system includes clinics, an eye hospital and affiliations with other health care facilities throughout the state. It is Birmingham's largest employer, with a staff of over 20,000. Ratings UAB Hospital also serves as the primary teaching hospital for the UAB School of Medicine. Seven UAB Hospital specialty programs are among the nation's top 50 — five are in the top 25 — of the 16 categories evaluated at America's 5,189 hospitals in 2006 by U.S. News & World Report. With its seven ranked programs, UAB Hospital was one of only 176 hospitals, or about 3 percent of U.S. institutions studied — and the only hospital in Alabama — to rank high enough in even one specialty to make the magazine's national "Best Hospitals" list. The seven specialties are: rheumatology (6th); heart and heart surgery (14th); gynecology (14th); kidney disease (17th); cancer (23rd); and orthopedics (47th). The 2005-2006 list of "Best Doctors in America" includes 234 UAB physicians, more than two-thirds of all specialists from the Birmingham metropolitan area in the Best Doctors database. Best Doctors is an independent, knowledge-based medical referral service located in Aiken, South Carolina. Its surveys ask peer physicians, "If you or a loved one needed a doctor in your specialty, to whom would you refer them?" Only about 3 to 5 percent of all specialists worldwide make the list, which currently names 33,000 in the U.S. — including 345 physicians in the Birmingham area. UAB Hospital received a 2005-2006 Consumer Choice Award from the National Research Corporation (NRC). It is among just 207 of 3,000 hospitals, nationally, to receive the recognition. The award is bestowed upon hospitals that receive highest marks among consumers for their quality and image, based on a nationwide survey of more than 200,000 households representing some 400,000 consumers. UAB Hospital is the only Birmingham-area hospital to receive the award this year. The recognition places UAB Hospital alongside such institutions as Johns Hopkins, Duke University Hospital, the Cleveland Clinic, the Mayo Clinic, and Yale-New Haven Hospital. History The hospital was established in 1945 as the teaching hospital for