That's not all that's changed. A semiprivate room overnight in the earliest days cost $31, compared to $765 a night now. There were 600 employees and 158 medical school clinical faculty; today there are 4,330 employees and 900 clinical faculty. And while 843 babies were born at the hospital during the first full year it operated, 3,419 debuted there in 2004.

When the facility opened "it was a new era for medical education in Utah," said Dr. David Bjorkman, dean of the medical school, which turned 100 this year.

Young noted a string of noteworthy firsts for University Hospital, including:

• The first newborn intensive care unit in the Intermountain West, which opened with four beds in 1968.

• The world's first artificial heart transplant, to Seattle dentist Barney Clark, in 1982.

• Utah's first heart transplant, to patient Tony Shepherd, 16, in 1985.

• The area's first Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner in 1985.

• Utah's first double-lung transplant in 1996.

• Utah's first telemedicine connection, linking U. Hospital and Wendover patients, in 1995.

The hospital also became the Intermountain West's first nationally verified Level 1 Trauma Center by the American College of Surgeons in 2001.

University Health Care also owns the AirMed helicopter and fixed-wing air ambulance fleet, which transports about 2,000 patients a year. The program has permanent bases in Salt Lake City, Ogden, Orem and Rock Springs, Wyo.

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E-mail: lois@desnews.com