The Los Angeles County Medical Center is a large campus of facilities, with several seperate hospital buildings: Womens' Hospital, the Pediatric Pavilion, L. A. County Psychiatric Hospital, and outpatient clinic, and, of course, the general hospital building. The entire facility boasts approximately 1200 inpatient beds in its four hospitals.

While often represented as a "charity hospital," LACMC is actually the central facility in the Los Angeles County Trauma and Emergency Response systems, receiving patients from all walks of life with the widest imaginable range of physical and mental health needs, as it has since its establishment in 1885.

One of the largest and most respected teaching facilities in the United States, LACMC is affiliated with the USC School of medicine, is home to the Los Angeles College of Nursing and Alied Health (formerly the L. A. County School of Nursing) and also the clinical training facility for pharmacists and a variety of other health care professionals.