Our History
The first diplomas issued by Vanderbilt University were to sixty-one Doctors of Medicine in February of 1875, thanks to an arrangement that recognized the University of Nashville's medical school as serving both institutions. Thus, Vanderbilt embraced a fully-organized and functioning medical school even before its own campus was ready for classes in October of that year.
The arrangement continued for twenty more years, until the school was reorganized under control of the Board of Trust.
In the early days, the School of Medicine was owned and operated as a private property of the practicing physicians who
composed the faculty and received the fees paid by students - a system typical of medical education in the United
States at the time. Vanderbilt made no financial contribution to the school's support and exercised no control over
admission requirements, the curriculum, or standards for graduation. After reorganization under the Vanderbilt Board in
1895, admission requirements were raised, the course was lengthened, and the system of instruction was changed to
include laboratory work in the basic sciences.
The famous report of Abraham Flexner, published by the Carnegie Foundation in 1910 and afterward credited with revolutionizing medical education in America, singled out Vanderbilt as "the institution to which the responsibility for medical education in Tennessee should just now be left." Large grants from Andrew Carnegie and his foundation, and from the Rockefeller-financed General Education Board, enabled Vanderbilt to carry out the recommendations of the Flexner Report. (These two philanthropies, with the addition of the Ford Foundation in recent years, have contributed altogether more than $20,000,000 to the School of Medicine since 1911). The reorganized school drew upon the best-trained scientists and teachers in the nation for its faculty. The full benefits of reorganization were realized in 1925 when the school moved from the old South Campus across town to the main campus, thus integrating instruction in the medical sciences with the rest of the University. The school's new quarters were called "the best arranged combination school and hospital to be found in the United States."
Rudolph A. Light Hall, completed in 1977, is a sophisticated facility providing much-needed space for medical education and other student activities. The seven-story structure contains 209,000 square feet of space housing the latest in laboratory equipment, audio-visual and electronic teaching tools, and multi-purpose classroom space. The second floor student lounge is designed to foster medical student interaction and to permit informal educational experiences - leading to the development of physicians grounded in the sciences but enlightened by humanitarian interests and understanding. Light Hall is the physical manifestation of Vanderbilt University Medical School's ongoing commitment to excellence in all areas of medical education.
The Medical Research Building, completed in 1989, provides laboratories and academic space for pharmacology, biochemistry, and molecular physiology and biophysics. The eight-story building also houses the A. B. Hancock Jr. Memorial Laboratory for Cancer Research and the positron emission tomography (PET) scanner.
The Vanderbilt University School of Medicine is accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME).
