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The Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College is the medical school and biomedical research unit of Cornell University. It is an elite medical college, and has consistently been ranked as being one of the best medical collegs in the nation. The admissions percentage of the medical college is one of the lowest in the nation, at 4.3%.
The medical college is currently located at 1300 York Avenue, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, along with the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences.
History
Cornell University Medical College was founded April 14, 1898 with an endowment by Col. Oliver H. Payne. It was established in New York City as Ithaca, where the main campus is located, was deemed too small to offer adequate clinical training opportunities. It was one of the first medical schools to admit women alongside men.
A branch of the school operated in Stimson Hall on the main campus upstate. The two-year Ithaca course paralleled the first two years of the New York school. It closed in 1938 due to declining enrollment.
In 1927, William Payne Whitney's $27 million donation led to the building of the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, which became the name for Cornell's large psychiatric effort. That same year, the college became affiliated with New York Hospital and the two institutions moved to their current joint campus in 1932. The hospital's Training School for Nurses became affiliated with the university in 1942, operating as the Cornell Nursing School until it closed in 1979.
In 1996, Cornell Medical College merged many of its administrative operations with those of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (P&S); on the same day, New York Hospital merged with the Presbyterian Hospital, affiliated with P&S. The combined institution operates today as New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Despite the clinical alliance, faculty and instructional functions of the Cornell and Columbia units remain distinct and independent. Multiple fellowships and clinical programs have merged, however, and the institutions are continuing in their efforts to bring together whichever departments might enhance academic efforts, reduce costs, or increase public recognition.
In 1998, the college was renamed after receiving a substantial endowment from Sanford I. Weill, then Chairman of Citigroup.
Profile
While similar to other elite medical schools, Weill Cornell is different in some important respects. Problem-based learning is emphasized more thoroughly than at perhaps any other school. Cornell recruits the highest percentage of underrepresented minorities of any non-minority medical school (e.g., Howard University or Meharry Medical College). Over half of the medical students do international clinical rotations. The Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program relies upon not only the faculty and resources of Cornell but on Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Rockefeller University, both of which lie adjacent to the Cornell campus.
Weill-Cornell's administrative connections are complex and far ranging. Its teaching hospital is Weill Cornell Medical Center, which, along with the Columbia University Medical Center (the teaching hospital of Cornell's primary rival and ally, Columbia University) comprises the New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Unlike many similar efforts, the New York Hospital-Columbia Presbyterian Hospital merger has not only led to the reduction of administrative redundancy but has strengthened academic programs on both campuses.
In addition to its affiliations with NYPH, MSKCC, and Rockefeller, Weill Cornell is the academic center for the Hospital for Special Surgery, which lies across the street and the The Methodist Hospital in Houston, a hospital which had been — until 2004 — the primary private teaching hospital for Baylor College of Medicine.
Cornell has also opened the first American medical school to be located outside of U.S. borders. The Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar opened for instruction in 2004. Its facilities are found in Education City, Qatar near Doha. WCMC-Q offers a six-year integrated medical education program primarily focused on patient care.
Notable alumni
- Robert C. Atkins (M.D. '55) The Atkins Diet
- Anthony Fauci (M.D. '66) - Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease at the National Institutes of Health
- Wilson Greatbatch (B.E.E. '50) - inventor of the cardiac pacemaker
- Henry Heimlich (M.D. '43) - inventor of the Heimlich maneuver
- Robert W. Holley (Ph.D. '47) - co-recipient of the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for describing the genetic code and how it operates in protein synthesis.
- C. Everett Koop (M.D. '41) - former Surgeon General
- Benjamin Spock (Residency in pediatrics, '31, and in psychiatry '33) - author, The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care.
- Henry Masur (M.D.'72, Internship, Residency Internal Medicine) - First description of AIDS in New England Journal of Medicine; described New York City patient cohort; article appeared with matching article from a group describing a similar cohort in San Francisco.
See also
References
External links
- Weill Cornell Medical College
- Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar
- Cornell/Rockefeller/Sloan-Kettering Tri-Institutional MD/PhD Program
- New York-Presbyterian Hospital
- The Methodist Hospital, Houston
Colleges and schools of Cornell University | Schools of Medicine in the United States | Universities and colleges in New York City
"Weill Medical College of Cornell University"