NYU Grossman School of Medicine was founded in 1841 as the Medical College of New York University,[3] with an inaugural class of 239 students.[4] Among the college's six original faculty members were renowned surgeon Valentine Mott and John Revere, son of patriot Paul Revere.[5] In 1898, the Medical College of New York University consolidated with Bellevue Hospital Medical College, forming the University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College of New York University.[6]
In 1935, University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College was renamed New York University College of Medicine.[6] In 1960, New York University College of Medicine was renamed New York University School of Medicine.[6]
The faculty and alumni of NYU Grossman School of Medicine have contributed to the control of tuberculosis, diphtheria, yellow fever, and sexually transmitted infections, as well as the development of vaccines for measles, rubella, hepatitis B, polio, and cancer; advances in the treatment and prevention of stroke and heart disease; and the introduction of minimally invasive surgical techniques.[7][8][9][10][11] In the early 1980s, clinicians and researchers from NYU Grossman School of Medicine working at NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue were among the first to identify an alarming increase in Kaposi's sarcoma, opportunistic infections, and immune system failure among young gay men, and alert health authorities to an imminent health catastrophe, soon to be known as HIV/AIDS.[12]
NYU Grossman School of Medicine counts among its faculty and alumni four Nobel laureates:
Otto Loewi (awarded 1936) who determined that the primary language of nerve cell communication is chemical rather than electrical[13]
Severo Ochoa (awarded 1959) who conducted landmark studies in biochemical genetics and nucleic acids[14]
Baruj Benacerraf (awarded 1980) who performed groundbreaking research on genetic regulation of the immune system[15]
Eric Kandel (awarded 2000) who discovered molecular processes that underlie learning and memory[16]
In 2007, Robert I. Grossman, an internationally recognized distinguished neuroradiologist who had served as chair of NYU Langone Health’s Department of Radiology since 2001, was appointed the 15th Dean of NYU School of Medicine and CEO of NYU Medical Center, as they were then named.[17]
In 2010, the school introduced the Curriculum for the 21st Century, or C21,a new curriculum that affords students earlier and more frequent interaction with patients and new learning pathways with more opportunities for specialized training in areas best suited to their interests.[18]
In 2013, the school established an accelerated three-year M.D. pathway for select medical students to ease the financial burden of medical school and launch medical careers one year earlier than traditional students.[19] The school became the first nationally ranked medical school in the U.S. to enable medical students to graduate in three years, providing a directed pathway into any one of twenty residency programs and accelerated entry into a variety of medical specialties.[20][21]
In 2018, the school implemented full-tuition scholarships for all current and future students in its M.D. degree program, making NYU Grossman School of Medicine the first top-ranked medical school in the nation to provide full-tuition scholarships to all of its students.[17]
In 2019, NYU Langone Health partnered with NYU to form NYU Long Island School of Medicine, a new, three-year medical school located at NYU Langone Hospital – Long Island.[22]
In 2019, the school was renamed NYU Grossman School of Medicine in honor of the educational achievements of Robert I. Grossman, the school's dean.[17]
NYU Grossman School of Medicine has 29 academic departments in the clinical and basic sciences.[23]
In 2010, NYU Grossman School of Medicine implemented a curriculum consisting of 18 months of basic science and two and a half years of clinical training. Students take the USMLE Step 1 exam after the clerkship year (with the exception of MD/PhD students, who take it before starting their PhD work). The curriculum also includes NYU3T (a joint program with the New York University College of Nursing) and PLACE (Patient-Based Longitudinal Ambulatory Care Experience).
NYU Grossman School of Medicine also offers 5-year joint degree programs, some of which can be optionally completed in 4 years:[24]
1841: New York University Medical College opens with an inaugural class of 239 students.[4]
1846: New York Academy of Medicine is founded by New York University Medical College faculty members Lewis Sayre, Gunning S. Bedford, and others[25]
1854: Human dissection is legalized in New York State to make more cadavers available for medical study, due to lobbying efforts by John W. Draper, a cofounder of New York University Medical College and president of the medical faculty[26][27]
1865: Stephen Smith, a public health advocate directs fellow faculty members of New York University Medical College to conduct the most comprehensive health survey of an American city ever undertaken, leading to the establishment of New York City’s Metropolitan Board of Health, the first such public health agency in the U.S.[28]
1898: New York University Medical College and Bellevue Hospital Medical College consolidate as University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College of New York University[6]
1904: U.S. Army Colonel William C. Gorgas, an 1879 alumnus of Bellevue Hospital Medical College, is appointed chief sanitary officer for the Panama Canal project, for which he implements measures that eradicate yellow fever and contain malaria, permitting construction to be completed[29]
1907: Sara Josephine Baker, a faculty member of University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College, leads efforts as New York City’s assistant commissioner of health to track down and quarantine “Typhoid Mary” Mallon, a domestic cook who, as an asymptomatic carrier of the disease, is the source of a deadly outbreak[30]
1923: University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College graduates its first female medical students: Grace S. Goldberg, Ella M. Hediger, Helen Druhan O'Brien, Marion Robertson, Edith C. Rosenthal, and Anna Topper[31]
1932: Department of Forensic Medicine, the first academic department of its kind in the U.S. is established at University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College. with Charles Norris, New York City's Chief Medical Examiner, as its chair[6][32]
1935: University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College is renamed New York University College of Medicine[6]
1945: "The Mission of a Medical School," a long-range plan for medical education, scientific research and patient care at New York University College of Medicine, is authored by faculty members Donal Sheehan, professor of anatomy and later dean, and Howard C. Taylor, Jr., professor of obstetrics and gynecology [33][34]
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: Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, the first comprehensive medical training program of its kind, is established at New York University College of Medicine. Its chair, Howard A. Rusk, draws on his experience treating wounded soldiers during World War II to develop a philosophy of caring for the patient as a whole person[35]
1951: Department of Neurosurgery is established at New York University College of Medicine[36]
1954: Jonas Salk, a 1939 alumnus of New York University College of Medicine tests the first polio vaccine on more than one million school children, the largest public health experiment in U.S. history[37]
1955: The Medical Science Building and the Henry W. and Albert Berg Institute opens at NYU.
1957: Albert Sabin, a 1931 alumnus of University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College, introduces the first live-virus vaccine against polio, an oral vaccine that effectively eliminates polio in the U.S. and dramatically reduces its impact worldwide[37]
1960: New York University College of Medicine is renamed New York University School of Medicine[6]
1960: Nina S. Braunwald, a 1952 alumna of New York University School of Medicine who is the first female cardiac surgeon in the U.S., performs the world’s first successful mitral valve replacement, using an artificial device of her own design and fabrication[38]
1964: NYU establishes one of the first three Medical Scientist Training Programs (dual MD/PhD graduate programs funded by the NIH) in the United States.
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.
1982: Linda Laubenstein, a 1973 alumna and clinical professor medicine at New York University School of Medicine, and Alvin E. Friedman-Kien, professor of dermatology and microbiology, coauthor the first paper published in a medical journal (The Lancet) linking HIV/AIDS to cases of Kaposi’s sarcoma, a previously rare skin cancer that would become an AIDS-defining illness.[39]
1989: Jan Vilček., professor of microbiology, and Junming Le, adjunct associate professor of microbiology, at New York University School of Medicine develop the monoclonal antibody that is the basis for Remicade, a potent biologic drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory disease[40]
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 is opened as an uncompromising commitment to the advancement and understanding of molecular approaches for the treatment of various important diseases.
1995: The Sir Harold Acton Society is established to recognize donors of $1 million or more.[41][42]
2001: Charles Hirsch, chair of the Department of Forensic Medicine at New York University School of Medicine and Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York, establishes a temporary morgue at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, then coordinates the largest number of post-mortem examinations in history, cataloguing some 22,000 individual human remains and identifying about 60% of the 2,753 victims[43][44]
2004: The NYU Clinical Cancer Center is opened (now called NYU Langone Health Perlmutter Cancer Center), an NCI-Designated comprehensive cancer center.[45]
2004: The Nobel Prize for Chemistry is awarded to the distinguished NYU adjunct faculty member Avram Hershko for his seminal discovery of the ubiquitin system in protein degradation.
2006: Hospital for Joint Diseases merges with NYU Medical Center and is renamed the NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases.[46]
2006: The School of Medicine's Joan and Joel Smilow Research Center is opened to house 4 major programmatic areas: Cancer, Pathology, Dermatology/Cutaneous Biology, and Cardiovascular Biology.
2010: New York University School of Medicine launches a Curriculum for the 21st Century, or C21, affording students earlier and more frequent interaction with patients and new learning pathways with more opportunities for specialized training in areas best suited to their interests.[18]
2013: New York University School of Medicine establishes an accelerated three-year M.D. pathway for select medical students.[20][19]
2014: NYU Grossman School of Medicine expands into The Alexandria Center of Life Science to host the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Pharmacology and the Department of Microbiology, as well as the facilities of Proteomics and Metabolomics.
2018: New York University School of Medicine implements full-tuition scholarships for all current and future students in its M.D. degree program, becoming the first top-ranked medical school in the nation to provide full-tuition scholarships to all of its students[17]
2019: NYU Langone Health partnered with NYU to form NYU Long Island School of Medicine, a new, three-year medical school located at NYU Langone Hospital—Long Island.
2019: New York University School of Medicine is renamed NYU Grossman School of Medicine in honor of the educational achievements of Dean Robert I. Grossman[17]
2019: Judith S. Hockman, the Harold Snyder Family Professor of Cardiology and NYU Grossman School of Medicine, presents the results of an international finding that for patients with stable ischemic coronary disease, an invasive treatment strategy (stenting) significantly outperformed a conservative approach in controlling chest pain (angina), but it offered no advantage in preventing cardiovascular-related death, heart attack, hospitalization for unstable angina or health failure, or resuscitation after cardiac arrest.[47]
2020: A team surgeons from NYU Grossman School of Medicine, led by Eduardo D. Rodriguez, the Helen L. Kimmel Professor of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery and chair of the Hansjörg Wyss Department of Plastic Surgery, performs the world’s first successful face and double hand transplant. [48][49] The patient, 22-year-old Joseph DiMeo, had suffered severe burns in a car accident.[49]
2022: Department of Radiology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine introduces video radiology reports to help patients understand the key clinical findings of their imaging exams, the first such reports made widely available to patients in a U.S. health system. [50]
