Alexander T. Augusta Military Medical Center

History

The former DeWitt Army Community Hospital was named in honor of Brigadier General Wallace DeWitt Sr., (1878–1949), a surgeon who served in both World War I and II.

The DeWitt Army Community Hospital opened in 1957, having cost $4.5 million to construct. It was the second of nine hospitals planned by the Army during the building program following the Korean War. DeWitt was a 46-bed Joint Commission-accredited facility and the only military inpatient facility in Northern Virginia. It was the center of the DeWitt Health Care Network, which featured the Andrew Rader Army Health Clinic at Fort Myer, Fort A.P. Hill, and the Family Health Centers of Woodbridge and Fairfax in Virginia.[[File:FtBelvoirCommunityHospitalTwilight.jpg|thumb|Front Entrance, Twilight]]As part of a Base Realignment and Closure announcement on May 13, 2005, the Department of Defense proposed closing Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) and merging it with the National Naval Medical Center located in Bethesda, MD, as well as replacing DeWitt Army Community Hospital. Moving nearly half of Walter Reed's services to DeWitt would greatly expand the hospital's mission. In November 2007, ground was broken on the grounds of the base's former South Post golf course for a new Fort Belvoir Community Hospital.

As part of the effort to transform service specific medical facilities into joint service facilities, during planning the hospital was designed to include Army, Navy, and Air Force medical personnel, making it one of the first joint medical facilities within the Department of Defense.

Structure

The modern, 120-bed facility was designed by HDR, Inc. and is LEED Gold certified, incorporating sustainable and natural elements and themes. The facility incorporates a seven-story main structure, flanked on each side by two outpatient clinic areas providing both primary and specialty care. In total, it consists of five total buildings, 3500 parking spaces, 44 clinics, expanded pharmacy services, 430 exam rooms, 10 operating rooms, two DaVinci surgical systems, two linear accelerator cancer/oncology systems, and one of the military's only dedicated substance abuse programs.

Inpatient services were tripled in volume over the old hospital, and the expanded outpatient specialty care center offers services as a more local and convenient alternative than Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, which is located over 30 miles away on congested highways. The hospital incorporates evidence-based design principles in its treatment approach.

Visits/Capacity

Department of Defense officials project the eligible beneficiary population will increase to more than 220,000 with approximately 40 percent of the expanded health care system enrolled population consisting of retirees and their family members. The anticipated outpatient workload is expected to grow to more than 600,000 visits per year in primary, specialty and ancillary clinics.

Selected specialty clinics such as Cardiology, Medical Oncology, Pulmonary, Radiation Oncology and Urology alone will generate approximately 54,000 appointments per year. The hospital's Labor and Delivery service delivered 104 babies in its first month of operations.

Namesake

Following the inactivation of DeWitt Army Community Hospital, Brigadier General Wallace DeWitt Sr. was not retained as a namesake. The new facility's address, at 9300 DeWitt Loop, remained as a nod to the base's original hospital and its namesake, while the new facility was known only as Fort Belvoir Community Hospital for more than a decade after opening in 2011. While the new hospital's name was standardized with the conventions of other Army Community Hospitals, its designed intent to be collectively staffed by members of the joint services meant its name eschewed a reference to the Army.

On May 19, 2023, the hospital was named the Alexander T. Augusta Military Medical Center for brevet lieutenant colonel Alexander Thomas Augusta. Born in Norfolk, Virginia, and educated in Toronto, Augusta became the United States' first African American professor of medicine, and hospital administrator, the Army's first African American physician, and first black man to reach the rank of Major. Upon the outbreak of the Civil War, he traveled to Washington and appealed to president Lincoln. Ultimately the Army Medical Board reconsidered an initial rejection, and he was appointed the regimental surgeon of the 7th U.S. Colored Troops. He is also recorded as being responsible for the desegregation of train cars in Washington, D.C.

Upon the hospital's naming, it was redesignated from a Community Hospital, a type of Medical Department Activity (MEDDAC) to a Medical Center (MEDCEN), a higher designation assigned to the largest and most capable military medical facilities.

References

• {{cite web | access-date = 2007-04-26 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070428144609/http://www.belvoireagle.com/index.php/news-articles/medical_care_expands_under_brac/ | archive-date = 2007-04-28 | url-status = dead

References

1. "VG93 - Fort Belvoir Community Hospital Heliport - SkyVector".
2. (2010-03-03). "Department of Defense Appropriations Fiscal Year 2011".
3. "U.S. Army Fort Belvoir".
4. "Fort Belvoir Community Hospital I Gilbane Building Company".
5. Patterson, Michael Robert. (2023-07-01). "Alexander Thomas Augusta - Major, United States Army".
6. (2022-02-25). "Remembering Dr. Alexander Augusta, the U.S. Army's First Black Doctor".
7. "Fort Belvoir Community Hospital Renamed to Honor Army Doctor".