ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the hospital's evolving role as a community institution intended to serve the needs of sick and injured people as a form of social responsibility. It evaluates the dual authority system of hospitals. The chapter compares the hospital patient role to the sick role. The development of hospitals as institutions providing medical services for the general public proceeded in pace with prevailing needs, beliefs, values, and attitudes of the societies they served. The Romans were the first to establish separate medical facilities that have been described as hospitals. Following the Renaissance and the Reformation, the outward character of hospitals appeared to change little from that of public institutions, whose purpose was to provide welfare services for the lower social classes on behalf of the communities in which they were located. The first hospitals were founded in the United States more than 250 years ago. Generally, their development paralleled that of Western European institutions in the 1700s.
