Stanford Medicine traces its history back to 1858 when Elias Samuel Cooper, a physician in San Francisco, California, founded the first medical school in the Western United States. That school went through many changes, including a change of name to Cooper Medical College, a takeover by Stanford University in 1908, and a move from San Francisco to the Stanford campus near Palo Alto, California in 1959.
In 1858 Elias Samuel Cooper collaborated with the University of the Pacific, a Methodist college then located in Santa Clara, to establish a Medical Department for the university in San Francisco. [1] [2] [3] The department opened in 1859 at Mission and Third Streets in San Francisco and was the first medical school in the western United States. Its seventeen trustees included ten clergy and three physicians. [2] [4]
The following year Cooper founded the San Francisco Medical Press, creating a venue for communication among medical practitioners in addition to the already-existing Pacific Medical and Surgical Journal. [5] Henry Gibbons, Sr. and Levi Cooper Lane (Cooper's nephew) joined the faculty of the Medical Department in 1861. [2]
However, in 1862 Cooper died, and without his leadership the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific became moribund. [6] In 1864 Hugh H. Toland opened the Toland Medical College at Stockton and Chestnut Streets in San Francisco. Lane, Gibbons and J.F. Morse moved from the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific to Toland Medical College. Instruction followed Parisian principles of medical education. [7] [8] In 1873 Toland Medical College became the Medical Department of the University of California, later the University of California, San Francisco.
Then, in 1870 Levi Cooper Lane returned from Toland and took over as the leader of the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific which he revived and re-organized. He opened a new facility on Stockton Street at Geary in San Francisco. [9] In 1872 the medical school switched its affiliation from University of the Pacific to University College, a Presbyterian school that later became the San Francisco Theological Seminary, and the name was changed to the Medical College of the Pacific. [9] [10] In 1877 the college admitted its first female student. [2]
Lane had bigger plans for the school, and in 1882 he renamed it Cooper Medical College, after his uncle, the founder. He moved it to a new brick building at Sacramento and Webster Streets which he had personally financed. The new college was staffed with faculty from the Medical College of the Pacific. Lane enlisted former student and future San Francisco mayor Edward Robeson Taylor to oversee compliance of the college with California's Medical Practice Act. [9] [11] In 1890 he added an addition to the facility which included Lane Hall (a large auditorium), laboratories, and a surgical theater. [12] The modern facilities and advanced curriculum gave the medical college a high reputation, and in 1892 Cooper Medical College was one of only seven U.S. medical schools recognized by the English Royal College of Surgeons. [13] The faculty was mostly made up of practicing physicians; in 1898 William Ophüls was appointed as the first full-time salaried professor. [14]
In 1895 the facilities were expanded with the opening of 100-bed Lane Hospital on the corner of Clay and Webster Streets. Construction of the hospital was supported by Claus Spreckels and James McDonald. [12] [15] [16] Also in 1895 the Lane Hospital Training School for Nurses (predecessor of the Stanford School of Nursing) was opened. At first nursing students were provided housing inside Lane Hospital. [17] Starting in 1899 they were housed in a residence on Clay Street adjacent to Lane Hospital, where Stanford Hospital would later stand. [17]
In 1896 Cooper Medical College student Theodore Durrant was convicted in a murder trial that garnered national press coverage. [18]
In 1900 Bubonic plague arrived in San Francisco by ship, starting the San Francisco plague of 1900–1904. California Governor Henry Gage issued a proclamation denying that bubonic plague exists in San Francisco, which was signed by Lane. [19]
In 1902 Lane died, and Charles N. Ellinwood was selected to replace him as the new president of Cooper Medical College. [15] However, in 1907 Ellinwood was removed from the presidency following a financial management controversy. [20]
In 1906 David Starr Jordan, president of Stanford University, proposed that the university acquire Cooper Medical College on condition that the latter take a medical research focus. [20] In 1908 Cooper Medical College was deeded to the Board of Trustees of Stanford University as a gift, and was renamed as the Stanford University Department of Medicine. In 1912 the Lane Hospital and the nursing school were also transferred to Stanford. [17]
Lane had made provision in his will for the construction of a medical library. The Levi C. Lane Medical Library Trust possessed a library of 30,000 volumes as well as a building site and funds for construction. Additional funds were provided by Stanford and by the directors of the former Cooper Medical College, and the Lane Medical Library opened in 1912 on the southeast corner of Webster and Sacramento Streets, across the street from the Stanford University Department of Medicine. At the time of its dedication it was the largest medical library west of Chicago. [21] [22] The building, which still stands, housed the California Pacific Medical Center Health Sciences Library until 2017. [23] [24]
1914 the Department of Medicine was renamed the Stanford School of Medicine and was re-organized into 10 divisions: anatomy; bacteriology and immunology; physiology; chemistry; pharmacology; pathology; medicine; surgery; obstetrics and gynecology; and hygiene and public health. [25] [26] In 1925 the Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine was founded. [27]
1917 saw the opening of Stanford University Hospital on Clay Street, adjacent to Lane Hospital,. [17] In 1919 the Stanford Home for Convalescent Children (the "Con Home") opened in Palo Alto. [28] [29]
In 1939 the Ruth Lucy Stern Research Laboratory opened across Clay Street from Lane Hospital and Stanford University Hospital, furthering Jordan's vision of a research-oriented medical school. [30]
During the 1950s the trustees of Stanford developed a plan to move the School of Medicine to the main Stanford campus, and the relocation was completed in 1959. The physical plant that previously housed the medical school in San Francisco was deeded to the Presbytery of San Francisco, thus creating the Presbyterian Hospital and Medical Center of San Francisco, [10] renamed the Pacific Medical Center in 1967, [10] the Pacific Presbyterian Medical Center in 1983, and the California Pacific Medical Center in 1991. [31] The original Cooper Medical College and Lane Hospital buildings were demolished in 1974. [10]
The new Stanford campus for the School of Medicine was designed by Edward Durell Stone. It included the Palo Alto-Stanford Hospital Center - a joint hospital with two separate staffs. [32] Among those faculty moving from the San Francisco campus to the new facility were Avram Goldstein and Henry Kaplan. Newly recruited faculty members included Norman Kretchmer, Arthur Kornberg, Joshua Lederberg, Halsted Holman, Robert Chase, and David Hamburg. [33]
In 1965 Palo Alto Hospital, renamed Hoover Pavilion, re-opened [34] and in 1968 Stanford reached an agreement with Palo Alto's city council to become sole owner of the hospital. [35]
In 1970 medical school faculty and students canceled classes to protest the U.S. invasion of Cambodia and the killing of students at Kent State and Jackson State. [36] In 1971 a demonstration alleging racist personnel policies at the hospital turned into a riot, resulting in injuries, arrests, and more than $100,000 damage to the hospital. [37]
The Stanford School of Nursing was closed in 1974. [38]
In 1980 Stanford University and the University of California, San Francisco received a patent for gene splicing and cloning technologies - a catalyst for the nascent biotechnology industry. [39] In 1981 the California Office of Statewide Planning issued a report praising Stanford University School of Medicine for recruiting minority students, while a faculty report charged that similar progress had not been made in recruiting minority faculty. [40]
Stanford University Medical School survived the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake relatively unscathed, although the Palo Alto Veterans Administration Medical Center, which is affiliated with the medical school, suffered approximately $30,000,000 damage. [41]
In 1997 Stanford and the University of California, San Francisco merged their hospitals and clinics while leaving their respective medical schools independent; however, the partnership was discontinued in 1999. [42]
In 1912 a new curriculum for the M.D. degree was introduced that required two years of pre-clinical study at Stanford's main campus, followed by 2 years of guided treatment of patients in hospital wards and clinics in San Francisco; a research-based thesis also becomes a requirement. This change reflected recommendations made in the 1910 Flexner Report. [25] In 1923 the curriculum was revised again, reducing required instruction to fewer than 4,000 hours - the amount required for students to be eligible for state licensing of physicians. The difference was to be made up through required work in departments of the student's choice, fostering further specialization. [43] In 1941, due to a demand for physicians in the Armed Forces during World War II, Stanford University Medical School developed the "9-9-9" Medical Plan, accelerating the time required to complete the M.D. program. The program was discontinued in 1945. [44]
In 1959, inspired by Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Stanford University School of Medicine adopted a five-year M.D. program. [45] In 1968 the curriculum was revised again. Instead of the five-year plan, all requirements in pre-clinical training were eliminated in favor of an all-elective curriculum. [46] This was reversed in 1984, when core preclinical courses once again became required. [47] In 1993 Stanford piloted a "Preparation for Clinical Medicine" curriculum, a course using problem-based learning, while retaining the traditional model of two years in basic sciences followed by two years in clinical studies. [48]
Stanford University is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies 8,180 acres, among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Its influence, wealth, and rankings have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the United States.
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It conducts research and teaching in medical and biological sciences.
Stanford University School of Medicine is the medical school of Stanford University and is located in Stanford, California. It traces its roots to the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific, founded in San Francisco in 1858. This medical institution, then called Cooper Medical College, was acquired by Stanford in 1908. The medical school moved to the Stanford campus near Palo Alto, California, in 1959.
Ray Lyman Wilbur was an American politician, physician, and eugenicist. He was a medical doctor who served as the third president of Stanford University and as the 31st United States Secretary of the Interior under President Herbert Hoover, also a Stanford alum.
Stanford University Medical Center is a medical complex which includes Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children's Health. It is consistently ranked as one of the best hospitals in the United States and serves as a teaching hospital for the Stanford University School of Medicine. In 2022–23, it was ranked by the US News as the 3rd-best hospital in California and 10th-best in the country.
Sutter Health California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) is a general medical/surgical and teaching hospital in San Francisco, California. It was created by a merger of some of the city's longest established hospitals and currently operates three acute care campuses.
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Dr. Samuel Lee Kountz Jr. was an African-American kidney transplantation surgeon from Lexa, Arkansas. He was most distinguished for his pioneering work in the field of kidney transplantations, and in research, discoveries, and inventions in Renal Science. In 1961, while working at the Stanford University Medical Center, he performed the first successful Kidney transplant between humans who were not identical twins. Six years later, he and a team of researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, developed the prototype for the Belzer kidney perfusion machine, a device that can preserve kidneys for up to 50 hours from the time they are taken from a donor's body. It is now standard equipment in hospitals and research laboratories around the world.
Levi Cooper Lane was an American physician and surgeon. He established the Cooper Medical College, forerunner to the Stanford University School of Medicine, as well as laying the groundwork for Stanford's medical library and the Stanford School of Nursing. The university's medical library is still named Lane Medical Library in his honor.
Lane Medical Library is the library of the Stanford University School of Medicine at Stanford University, near Palo Alto, California. Its mission is to "accelerate scientific discovery, clinical care, medical education and humanities through teaching, collaboration, and delivery of biomedical and historical resources". It is located on campus adjacent to Stanford Hospital and Clinics. In addition to books, journals and documents for medical research and the teaching and practice of medicine, Lane Library houses a significant collection of material relating to the history of medicine. The library also provides specialized search capabilities, classes and tutorials, writing and grant support, and group and individual study spaces.
Mary Elizabeth Bennett Ritter was an American physician and an advocate for women's rights and public health issues in Berkeley, California. She was known as a pioneer in her time because women were largely excluded from medical training and employment. Despite restricted access, Ritter built a successful private practice. She also advocated for women in medical professions, training for nurses, and sanitation standards in hospitals and doctor's offices. She helped start the Pacific Dispensary for Women and Children, free clinics for poor women and children. In 1933, she published her autobiography, More Than Gold in California.
Blake Colburn Wilbur was a surgeon and one of the co-founders of the Palo Alto Medical Clinic.
The UCSF School of Medicine is the medical school of the University of California, San Francisco and is located at the base of Mount Sutro on the Parnassus Heights campus in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1864 by Hugh Toland, it is the oldest medical school in California and in the western United States. U.S. News & World Report ranked the school third in research training and second in primary care training; it is the only medical school in the nation to rank among the top three in both categories. Six members of the UCSF faculty have received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and five have received the National Medal of Science.
Richard Beverly Cole was an American physician and past president of the American Medical Association (AMA). He was dean of the Toland Medical College during the time that it merged with the University of California system. A surgeon and obstetrician-gynecologist, Cole was among the first to perform some of the newer surgical procedures of his era, such as the Caesarean section and ligation of the common carotid and femoral arteries.
Philip Randolph Lee was an American physician who served as the United States Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs under President Lyndon B. Johnson from 1965 to 1969 and President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1998.
Hugh Huger Toland was an American surgeon who founded the Toland Medical College, which later became the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He was one of the most successful surgeons in California. He was from South Carolina, and was active in San Francisco.
Levi Lewis Dorr was an American Civil War veteran and physician. He served at the Battle of Antietam, and as a physician was one of the original faculty of Cooper Medical College, the predecessor to Stanford University School of Medicine.
Elias Samuel Cooper was an American surgeon who founded the Stanford Medical School.