Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh

The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, or RIE, often known as the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, or ERI, was established in 1729 and is the oldest voluntary hospital in Scotland. The new buildings of 1879 were claimed to be the largest voluntary hospital in the United Kingdom, and later on, the Empire. The hospital moved to a new 900 bed site in 2003 in Little France. It is the site of clinical medicine teaching as well as a teaching hospital for the University of Edinburgh Medical School. It is currently run by NHS Lothian. In 1960, the first kidney transplant performed in the UK was performed at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh by surgeon Michael Woodruff. In 1964, the world's first coronary care unit was established at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh by Dr. Desmond Julian. It is the only site for liver, pancreas and pancreatic islet cell transplantation and one of two sites for kidney transplantation in Scotland. It is currently the only site for TAVI in Scotland. In 2012 the Emergency Department had 113,000 patient attendances, the highest number in Scotland. On 16 November 2014, the University announced the Royal Infirmary as the location of Scotland's first PET-MRI Scanner.