History
Established in 1885, the USC College of Medicine became the region’s first medical school and the second professional school founded at USC. That same year, led by its first dean Joseph Pomeroy Widney, M.D., the school entered into an affiliation with the Los Angeles County Hospital-a relationship that still exists today-enabling students to train in one of the largest teaching hospitals in the nation.
The school’s original home was in a two-story brick building that formerly housed a winery. In 1896 the USC College of Medicine opened a modern three-story building constructed with $20,000 that the faculty had personally borrowed.
In 1932, the USC School of Medicine established an affiliation with Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA). The following year, Los Angeles County opened a new modern county hospital, the Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center. The building was used for 75 years until replaced in 2008.
In 1949 the University purchased land adjacent to the county hospital, which became the nucleus of the medical campus known today as the USC Health Sciences campus.
The 1950s and 1960s saw the school emerge as an innovator by adding a Doctor-Patient Relations program to its curriculum and developing a standardized patient program — using actors to help train medical students — and creating a mannequin, later dubbed Sim One, which could simulate the physiological responses of a human body. The innovations proved highly successful and garnered much respect for the school’s developing curriculum. The standardized patient program has grown steadily in popularity and is common among medical schools today.
In 1973, the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center was established as one of the original National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers. The campus further expanded with the opening of the Doheny Eye Institute in 1985 and USC University Hospital, now called Keck Hospital of USC, in 1991.
In 1999, the school was named the Keck School of Medicine of USC to honor a generous $110 million gift from the W. M. Keck Foundation, the largest philanthropic gift ever made to a U.S. medical school at that time.
In 2009, USC bought USC University Hospital and USC Norris Cancer Hospital from Tenet Healthcare Corporation and currently operates both of these teaching hospitals.
Read more about this topic: Keck School Of Medicine Of USC
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