History
The New York University School of Medicine has a proud history that goes
back to 1837 and includes initiation of and participation in many of the
major events in American medicine through two centuries. In 1837, six years
after the granting of the first University charter, the minutes of the
meetings of the University Council contained the names of men suggested
as professors for the chief branches of medical instruction.
In 1841, the University Medical College was organized, and instruction was begun under the following: Surgery, Anatomy; Chemistry; Theory and Practice of Medicine; Institutes of Medicine and Materia Medical; Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children.
Clinical instruction was started in Bellevue Hospital in 1847, and in 1861 Bellevue Hospital Medical College was founded when a college building was erected on the hospital grounds.
With the passing of the years and a deepening conviction that the total medical enterprise should be placed in the scholarly setting of the University, it became clear that University Medical College and Bellevue Hospital Medical College would benefit by consolidating. Thus, the medical school became an integral part of New York University in 1898 under the name of University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College. In 1935 the name was changed to New York University College of Medicine and in 1960 to New York University School of Medicine. The School of Medicine celebrated its sesquicentennial year in 1991.
Today the Medical School boasts 1,360 Full-Time faculty and 2,175 Part-Time faculty. There are 26 Endowed Professorships, 975 Residents/Fellows, 68 M.D./Ph.D. Candidates and 4,788 Post-Graduate Registrants.
Milestones
| Year | Milestone |
| 1841 | The New York University College of Medicine opens, ten years after the founding of the university. The college is committed to strengthening the education of American physicians; among the original faculty is John Revere, son of patriot Paul Revere and Valentine Mott, probably the foremost surgeon of his day. |
| 1854 | Human dissection
in New York is legalized due to efforts of faculty
at the NYU College of Medicine. The first successful resection of a hip joint is performed by Lewis A. Sayre, M.D., the first professor of orthopedic surgery in the United States. |
| 1855-65 | Faculty members of the NYU Medical College play a leading role in treating soldiers wounded during the Civil War, chiefly through work on the United States Sanitary Commission. |
| 1866 | NYU professors of
medicine produce a Report for the Council of Hygiene
and Public Health. It leads to the establishment
of New York City's Health Department. The first outpatient clinic in the United States opens at NYU. |
| 1872 | NYU's Stephen Smith, M.D., founds the American Public Health Association. |
| 1884 | The Carnegie Laboratory, the first facility in the United States devoted to teaching and research in bacteriology and pathology, is established at NYU. |
| 1899 | Dr. Walter Reed discovers the mosquito transmission of yellow fever. |
| 1911 | The first outpatient cardiac clinic in New York is established by NYU's Hubert V. Guile, M.D. |
| 1931 | Albert Sabin, who later developed a live-virus vaccine against polio, received his M.D. degree at NYU. |
| 1932 | The first department
of forensic medicine in the United States is established
at NYU. NYU organizes one of the nation's first interdisciplinary research efforts, the Rheumatic Diseases Study Group, helping to usher in the era of modern rheumatology. |
| 1933 | William S. Tillett, M.D. conducts groundbreaking studies of enzymes involved in blood clotting. His work leads to the development of streptokinase, used to combat heart attacks. |
| 1939 | Jonas Salk, developer of the first vaccine against polio, receives his M.D. degree at NYU. |
| 1941 | The first department of physical medicine and rehabilitation in the United States is established at NYU. |
| 1941-45 | During the war years, NYU-trained Julius Axelrod, M.D., works with James Shannon, M.D., and other faculty members in the Medical Schools malaria program. Dr. Axelrod is later awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine. |
| 1947 | A site for a new
Medical Center, consisting of the NYU School of Medicine,
the Post-Graduate Medical School, University (now
Tisch) Hospital, and the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation
Medicine, is selected. The Institute of Industrial Medicine is established. |
| 1948 | University Hospital is created through a merger of the New York Post-Graduate Hospital and New York Skin and Cancer Hospital. |
| 1954 | Lewis Thomas, M.D., assumes chairmanship of the Department of Pathology. |
| 1955 | The Medical Science Building and the Henry W. and Albert Berg Institute opens at NYU. |
| 1957 | The Hall of Research and Alumni Hall are constructed. |
| 1959 | The Nobel Prize for medicine is awarded to NYU faculty member Servero Ochoa, M.D., for his seminal study of biochemical genetics and nucleic acids. |
| 1960 | The Clinical Research Center, funded by the NIH, is established at NYU. |
| 1960s | NYU pathologist Baruj Benacerraf, M.D., conducts pioneering research on genetic regulation of the immune system, for which he is later awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1980. |
| 1962 | One of the first M.D.-Ph.D., programs in the United States is established at NYU. |
| 1963 | The new University Hospital opens. |
| 1964 | The Institute and Department of Environmental Medicine are established. |
| 1975 | One of the first designated national cancer centers is established at NYU, later named the Rita and Stanley H. Kaplan Center. |
| 1980 | Saul Krugman, M.D., professor of pediatrics, develops the first vaccine against hepatitis B. Earlier, he had been honored for his research work in rubella. |
| 1981 | NYU scientists present the first evidence linking rare cancer, Kaposi's sarcoma, with immune deficiency in a distinct population of homosexual men, a key step in identifying AIDS. |
| 1992 | NYU Medical Center opens Women's Health Services under the auspices of the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Radiology. |
| 1993 | The School of Medicine's Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine, the largest building project in history of NYU, is opened as an uncompromising commitment to the advancement and understanding of molecular approaches for the treatment of various important diseases. |
| 1998 | NYU Medical Center is restructured, creating the "NYU Hospitals Center" (including Tisch Hospital and Rusk Institute), the "NYU Health System" (consisting of NYU Hospitals Center, Hospital for Joint Diseases and NYU Downtown Hospital), and the "NYU School of Medicine" which remains an administrative unit of New York University. |
