A teaching-nursing-social services congregation that has become the second largest order of religious women in the world, the Sisters of Mercy sponsor and co-sponsor many organizations and ministries, including St. Mary's Medical Center and Dignity Health.

Six Sisters from the order's Burlingame Region—which covers California, Phoenix, Arizona and Peru—continue to serve vital roles at St. Mary's today.

Eight Sisters were chosen to make the journey, headed by 25-year-old Sister Mary Baptist Russell (née Katherine Russell), who had joined the order at the age of 19 and nursed victims through Ireland's horrible cholera epidemic of 1849—an experience that later would prove valuable in San Francisco.

The valiant Irish nuns disembarked to a chilly gray dawn in San Francisco on Friday, December 8, 1854.

On July 19, the County patients were moved, and on July 27, the Sisters opened the Stockton Street building as St. Mary's Hospital, the first Catholic Hospital in San Francisco—beginning a new chapter in their ongoing story of providing health care and community services to the city of San Francisco.

Doctors at St. Mary's Medical Center launched a campaign to preserve its unique services once UCSF announced its intentions.

This campaign was chaired by St. Mary's physicians Dr. Remo Morelli, Dr. Pamela Lewis, Dr. Kenneth Mills, Dr. Terrie Mendelson, Dr. Eugene Gregor, Dr. Diana Hilbert, Dr. Jennifer van Warmerdam, and Dr. Warren Chang.