Harvard Medical School

Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts.

HMS is home (as of Fall 2012) to 705 students in the M.D. program, 147 in the D.M.D. program, 556 in the Ph.D. program, and 155 in the M.D.‑Ph.D program. A typical entering class at Harvard Medical School consists of 165 MD students and 35 DMD students. Upon matriculation, the class of 200 students are divided into five societies named after famous alumni. The majority of first-year students reside in Vanderbilt Hall, across the street from the medical school. Harvard Medical School's M.D.-Ph.D. program allows a student to receive an M.D. from HMS and a Ph.D. from either Harvard or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (see Medical Scientist Training Program). Prospective students apply to one of two tracks to the M.D. degree. New Pathway, the larger of the two programs, emphasizes problem-based learning. HST, operated by the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, emphasizes medical research.

The school has a large and distinguished faculty to support its missions of education, research, and clinical care. These faculty hold appointments in the basic science departments on the HMS Quadrangle, and in the clinical departments located in multiple Harvard-affiliated hospitals and institutions in Boston. There are approximately 2,900 full- and part-time voting faculty members consisting of assistant, associate, and full professors, and over 5,000 full or part-time, non-voting instructors.

The current dean of the medical school is Jeffrey S. Flier, an endocrinologist and the former Chief Academic Officer of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, who succeeded neurologist Joseph B. Martin, M.D., Ph.D on September 1, 2007. Sanjiv Chopra, M.B.B.S., M.A.C.P. is the Faculty Dean for the Continuing Education Department.