Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science - History

History

The precursor of RFUMS, then known as The Chicago Hospital-College of Medicine, was founded in Chicago in 1912. A group of physicians and community leaders formed a non-profit school to serve those medical students who were able to attend only at night. From the beginning, the institution, long known as The Chicago Medical School, rejected the use of quotas to limit minority enrollment. Enrollment more than doubled during the Great Depression. The school became a haven for Jewish researchers and faculty, recruited in great numbers as they fled Nazi Europe beginning in the late 1930s. The leaders of the school believed that only a student's merit should play a role in the admissions process.

1967 marked the formation of The University of Health Sciences/The Chicago Medical School. The University of Health Sciences was designed to build teams of health professionals, bringing diagnostic, supportive, and investigative functions of medicine together in one setting. In 1968, The University of Health Sciences established the School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, followed by The School of Related Health Sciences (now The College of Health Professions) in 1970.

The University of Health Sciences was one of the first schools in the country committed to developing integrated educational programs for physicians and related health professionals. This educational model, conceived by Dr. A. Nichols Taylor, president of Chicago Medical School, and funded largely through the efforts of board chairman Herman M. Finch, brought together diagnostic, supportive and investigative functions of medicine in one setting.

In 1980, the University moved from Chicago to its current location at 3333 Green Bay Road in North Chicago, and was renamed for its chairman, Herman M Finch, in 1993. The Dr. William M. Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine, joined Finch University in 2002. In 2004, the University was again renamed, this time to Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, in honor of Dr. Rosalind Franklin, whose work with X-ray crystallography provided the data and scientific basis for description of the structure of DNA, the single most important advance of modern biology.

In October 2002, the University opened its new Health Sciences Building, a 140,000-square-foot (13,000 m2) facility that houses laboratories, auditoriums, classrooms, a student union, bookstore and the Feet First Museum. In July 2003, the University opened its first phase of student housing, making the institution a residential campus for the first time in its history. In the summer of 2003, the University completed two new facilities designed to provide the latest in medical technology to students. The Education and Evaluation Center and the John J. Sheinin, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., Gross Anatomy Laboratory provide state-of-the-art equipment and multimedia resources by which students participate in invaluable training. These facilities promote the use of integrated technologies and novel approaches to the study of human anatomy, to the practice of physical examination, and to the art of taking a patient history.

In 2011, the university opened a new College of Pharmacy housed in a 23,000 square-foot, three story building.

Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science is an interprofessional health sciences University. Facilities include a multi-media laboratory, virtual microscopy lab and the Education and Evaluation Center with high tech opportunities for education and research.