University Hospital Greifswald, established in 1956, is one of the oldest and nationally-recognized medical centers in Germany. The 32 specialized departments and 19 institutes of the hospital provide the entire spectrum of medical care and work together to ensure the highest level of care for patients. All aspects of activities such as patient care, research, and teaching are all provided on a national and internationally recognized level. The hospital offers its care in both an inpatient and outpatient fashion as it consists of general wards with 939 beds and 32 polyclinics where the medical staff treats over 36,000 inpatients and over 100,000 outpatients every year, respectively. Specialists of the surgery departments perform nearly 6,000 outpatient operations annually in the state-of-the-art outpatient operating rooms.