The Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California is a major medical school and patient care institution located in Los Angeles, California. It is the oldest medical school in Southern California, founded in 1885. It is a part of the University of Southern California (USC), a large, private research university. The medical school's primary academic hospital is the Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center (LAC+USC). The school is also affiliated with a multitude of other USC-owned hospitals and medical centers. It also maintains connections and affiliations with many other hospitals in Southern California and around the world. Its unique connections with these medical centers, especially LAC+USC, allow students at Keck to experience a vast diversity of patient care cases as well as a great variety of cutting-edge research in practice.