This is North America's oldest Surgical Amphitheatre at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. Used from 1804 to 1868, operations were scheduled between 11am and 2pm to take advantage of the skylight above. The space helped launch American clinical teaching by bringing patients directly before medical students, following Dr. Thomas Bond's bedside-teaching model. Students bought tickets to observe leading surgeons, and townspeople learned of procedures through posted broadsides. The Amphitheatre marked the formal rise of surgery as its own discipline. Before its creation, limited surgery occurred and was often part of anatomy classes. Its opening fulfilled the University of Pennsylvania faculty's long-standing goal for a space where large groups could receive lectures and witness operations.

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