<p>Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
32 points in 16 specialties </p>
<p>Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.
28 points in 14 specialties </p>
<p>Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
24 points in 13 specialties </p>
<p>Cleveland Clinic
24 points in 12 specialties </p>
<p>UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles
23 points in 14 specialties </p>
<p>(TIE) Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C.</p>
<p>18 points in 10 specialties
(TIE) University of California, San Francisco Medical Center</p>
<p>my orientation counselor says that the president of the USA gets flown to UCLA Medical Center if he ever gets sick or is in an emergency on the west coast (johns hopkins does the east coast)</p>
<p>My counselor at orientation told me that too... Unfortunately, I think that's total BS. Not only is it unverifiable, it's rather far-reaching as well. What if the President were critically wounded in Seattle, WA? Would the emergency crews take him to the nearest emergency room or fly him all the way to the UCLA Medical Center?</p>
<p>haha yeah thats one of the things they like to mention; I think its pretty cool. Now granted it's because UCLA is the best hospital for over a thousand miles (at least until the Mayo Clinic :)), but I always wondered if UCLA was also easier to secure since we have the federal building on Wilshire less than a mile away (imagining a stream of black suburbans to come flying out of the parking lot) . Well, in my EMT class last summer, there was an FBI field agent in my group, and I asked her about that - she said that there was actually very little of that type of thing going on in that building. It is now mainly an administrative center for the FBI and other federal agencies. She does undercover drug work in central LA, and only works out of that building one or two days a week.
Still, there must be a decent amount of extra background checks for at least the ER staff, knowing that this is the designated destination of the president in the event of an emergency.</p>