Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine - History

History

On November 1, 1843, five faculty members and sixty-seven students began the first medical lectures at the Medical Department of Western Reserve College (also known as the Cleveland Medical College).

The School of Medicine has trained medical students, served the community, and been at the forefront of discovery in the City of Cleveland for over 165 years. A historical photo gallery is available at: http://casemed.case.edu/about/photogallery.cfm

Women in Medicine: In 1852, the medical school became the second in the U.S. to graduate a woman, Nancy Talbot Clarke. 1854 MD alumnus, Emily Blackwell became the third woman in the US to receive a regular medical degree. Six of the first seven women in the United States to receive medical degrees from recognized allopathic medical schools graduated from Western Reserve University between 1850 and 1856.

Flexner Survey:

In 1909, Arbraham Flexner, a graduate of Johns Hopkins University surveyed and evaluated each of the one hundred and fifty-five medical schools then extant in North America. The results of his investigation proved shocking: most "medical schools," for example, had entrance requirements no more stringent than either high school diploma or "rudiments or the recollection of a common school education."

Only sixteen schools required at least two years of college as an entrance requirement, and of these, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, and Western Reserve were still the only ones to require an undergraduate degree. Although Johns Hopkins represented his ideal, Flexner also singled out the Medical Department of Western Reserve University for its praiseworthy admission standards and facilities. Flexner referred to Western Reserve as "already one of the substantial schools in the country." In a letter to Western Reserve president Charles Franklin Thwing he said, "The Medical Department of Western Reserve University is, next to Johns Hopkins..., the best in the country."

Western Reserve Curriculum: A little over forty years later, in 1952, the Western Reserve University School of Medicine revolutionized medical education with the "new curriculum of 1952" and more advanced stages in 1968. This was the most progressive medical curriculum in the country at that time, integrating the basic and clinical sciences.

Research History: Development of the modern technique for human blood transfusion using a cannula to connect blood vessels; first large-scale medical research project on humans in a study linking iodine with goiter prevention; pioneering use of drinking water chlorination; discovery of the cause of ptomaine food poisoning and development of serum against it and similar poisons; first surgical treatments of coronary artery disease; discovery of early treatment of strep throat infections to prevent rheumatic fever; development of an early heart-lung machine to be used during open-heart surgery; discovery of the Hageman factor in blood clotting, a major discovery in blood coagulation research; first description of how staphylococcus infections are transmitted, leading to required hand-washing between patients in infant nurseries; first description of what was later named Reye's syndrome; research leading to FDA approval of clozapine, the most advanced treatment for schizophrenia in 40 years at the time; discovery of the gene for osteoarthritis; and creation with Athersys, Inc., of the world's first human artificial chromosome.

Integrated MD/PhD Training: In 1956, CWRU School of Medicine began an explicit M.D. and Ph.D. dual-degree training program. This served as a template for other research medical schools who quickly adopted the idea. In 1964, the National Institutes of Health began to fund some of these programs through its prestigious Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP). Today, the MSTP trains nearly a thousand students at any given time.

CaseMed Today: Today the CWRU School of Medicine is the largest biomedical research institution in Ohio and one of the largest in the nation, as measured by funding received from the National Institutes of Health. The School of Medicine has eight Nobel Prize holders among its alumni and former and current faculty, and also has graduates who have distinguished themselves as U.S. Surgeons General: Jesse Steinfeld, MD, and David Satcher, MD, PhD, and the current the Director of the CDC, Julie Gerberding, MD.