University of Minnesota Medical School - History

History

The University of Minnesota Medical School began in the late nineteenth century when three of the private medical schools in the Twin Cities in Minnesota offered up their charters and merged their programs to form the University of Minnesota Medical School. A fourth school was absorbed in the early twentieth century. As a consequence of these mergers in 1888 and 1908 the School is the only medical school in the Twin Cities or Duluth, and is one of only two in the state, the other being Mayo Medical School in Rochester, Minnesota.

The University of Minnesota Medical School has made use of many facilities over the years. Older buildings still prominently standing include the Mayo Memorial Building (1954) and Jackson Hall (1912). Jackson Hall was built as the home of the Institute of Anatomy and is still the site of anatomy instruction for medical students, undergraduates, and students of dentistry, nursing, physical therapy, and mortuary science. More visible today are the 1978 Phillips-Wangensteen and Moos Tower buildings. A new University Hospital overlooking the river was completed in 1986.

The Duluth program began in the late 1960s. It is now a branch campus of the Medical School, specializing in the training of physicians for rural and small-town settings in rural Minnesota.