Indiana University School of Medicine

In March 1903, William Lowe Bryan, tenth president of IU, proposed the formation of a department of medicine at IU Bloomington to the university trustees. The new department was approved and established in May of the same year. The IU School of Medicine was admitted as a member of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) in 1904.

William Lowe Bryan, c.1898

In addition to IUSM in Bloomington, IU's leaders wanted to locate medical training facilities in Indianapolis. Their initial plan was to provide medical students with the first two years of coursework at Bloomington and the final two years at Indianapolis, where students would receive clinically-based training as part of their studies.[14] Prior to 1908, due primarily to the high cost of establishing its own medical facilities in Indianapolis, IU attempted to merge with existing medical schools, but the effort was unsuccessful.[15]

The current school in Indianapolis is a mixture of several earlier medical colleges. In 1869, the Indiana Medical College opened in Indianapolis.[16] This institution would associate with IU in 1871; the partnership ended in 1876 when IU failed to receive state funding for medical instruction.[17][18] In 1874, the College of Physicians and Surgeons opened in Indianapolis as a breakaway school from the Indiana Medical College following a dispute over admissions policies; the schools reunited as the Medical College of Indiana and associated with Butler University in 1878.[16][19] Two more medical schools opened in 1879: the Indianapolis-based Central College of Physicians and Surgeons (unrelated to the 1874 school) and the Fort Wayne College of Medicine. In 1896, the Medical College of Indiana, Butler, and the Indiana Law School formed a loose collection of colleges named the University of Indianapolis (U of I),[20] an unrelated institution to the modern University of Indianapolis founded 1902. The Indiana Dental College joined U of I in 1904. Plans existed to create a central campus and expand the number of component colleges, but they never materialized and thus U of I remained an amorphous entity. Its component colleges gradually joined with IU over time with the exception of Butler, which remains independent.[20] The name University of Indianapolis was last used in this context by the Indiana Law School in 1936;[20] the modern university renamed itself to the University of Indianapolis in 1986.

After IUSM was founded in Bloomington in 1903, formal negotiations opened between IU and the Medical College of Indiana to merge the schools; however, due to fundamental disagreements on where the school would be located (the Medical College of Indiana wished it to remain in Indianapolis while IU wanted to move it to Bloomington), the proposal was not ratified, and by 1904 the matter was indefinitely abandoned.[3]

While negotiations were ongoing between IU and the Medical College of Indiana, representatives from the Central College of Physicians and Surgeons approached Purdue University's medical department in West Lafayette, which was established some time prior to 1895, to arrange a similar union.[3] The Purdue trustees declined the offer, not wanting to interfere with the concurrent negotiations between IU and the Medical College of Indiana.[3] In May 1905 the Medical College of Indiana submitted the same proposal ("...to give its property and assets of an appraised value of $100,000 to the University, and to accompany the gift by its good will and the gratuitous services of its faculty; the motive being to permanently establish a medical college of high order in connection with an educational institution of good standing.") that had failed ratification with IU to Purdue's trustees.[3] The trustees took the proposal into consideration, and were "convinced that the conditions were unusually favorable to the consummation of a union of interests where all previous efforts had failed, and to the inauguration of a progressive educational movement of great value to the State." By September the proposal was accepted subject to the approval of the state legislature, and the Medical College of Indiana became part of Purdue University with the full title of "the Indiana Medical College, the School of Medicine of Purdue University."

The Indiana Medical College, the School of Medicine of Purdue University, 1906.

On September 25, 1905, the trustees of the Central College of Physicians and Surgeons voted to suspend operations and to transfer the students, alumni, personal property, and funds of the college to the Purdue School of Medicine. Later on October 2, the Fort Wayne College of Medicine voted to likewise merge with the Purdue School of Medicine and transfer personnel and equipment to Indianapolis.[3] The Purdue School of Medicine operated out of the former Medical College of Indiana's facilities on Senate Avenue in Indianapolis. The building that housed the Central College of Physicians and Surgeons at 212 North Senate Avenue was sold.[21] In May 1906, 122 students received medical degrees from Purdue University and successfully passed the examination of the State Board of Medical Registration. In the spring of 1907, Purdue graduated 68 men and four women; in that class was Arett C. Arnett, a physician who helped establish a Lafayette clinic in 1922 later known as Arnett Clinic and today known as Indiana University Health Arnett Hospital.

The founding of Purdue's medical school triggered a debate over which state university, IU or Purdue, had the legal authority to establish a state-supported, four-year medical school in Indianapolis. IU believed that under a legislative act approved on February 15, 1838, it had the authorization alone to provide state-supported instruction in medicine, but the development of a medical school was delayed due to a lack of sufficient funding.[22] A legal opinion published October 31, 1905, and penned by a W.H.H. Miller noted that neither university had the authority to conduct a medical program outside its home county, as that legislative act only mentioned medical education "on the grounds of the University" and does not specify to which university "the University" refers.[23] The rivalry was so intense that it is sometimes labeled as the instigating factor for the cancellation of athletic events between the universities from 1906 to 1908; however, newspapers from the time cite a fight that occurred at a baseball game in West Lafayette on May 31, 1906, as the cause.[24]

The building that was sold and housed the former Central College of Physicians and Surgeons would eventually come under the ownership of IU supporters, who would establish a separate medical school, the State College of Physicians and Surgeons, there in 1906. This school offered clinical instructions to IU Bloomington's third- and fourth-year medical students. The State College enrolled 109 students in September 1906. In August 1907 the IU board of trustees agreed to a merger of the IU School of Medicine in Bloomington with the State College in Indianapolis but agreed to take financial responsibility for only the school's facilities in Monroe County. The first two years of training continued at Bloomington and the final two years of clinical training were held at the State College in Indianapolis, with a doctor of medicine degree conferred by Indiana University.[25]

Winthrop E. Stone, 1902

To resolve their ongoing dispute, the leaders of IU and Purdue, along with each of their supporters, sought approval from the Indiana General Assembly to operate their own schools of medicine in Marion County with the 1907 legislative session hearing proposals from both IU and Purdue to operate separate schools.[23] Divided over competing loyalties to IU or Purdue (the state's largest public schools and historic rivals), legislators debated for months, with neither bill being passed. Eventually, Purdue's president, Winthrop E. Stone, relented and was hailed as a peacemaker, stating that Purdue should leave medical education to IU as it was not central to Purdue's mission as an agricultural and mechanical university and because the problem was so disruptive.[23] In April 1908, IU and Purdue reached an agreement that incorporated the State College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Indiana Medical College, the School of Medicine of Purdue University into the school of medicine in Bloomington and retained the name Indiana University School of Medicine.[26] The agreement additionally stipulated that the school be governed by a board of directors consisting of representatives from IU, Purdue, and the Indiana State Medical Association.[3] This shared governance came to an end on February 26, 1909, when the state legislature formally authorized IU to operate a medical school in Marion County and clearly mandated that IU assume total responsibility for the state's public medical school.[3] The state legislature's authorization enabled IU's medical students to complete all four years of their medical education in Indianapolis or remain in Bloomington for their first two years before transferring.[13]

Dr. Allison Maxwell agreed to serve as the first dean of the four-year IU School of Medicine in Indianapolis in April 1908; he remained as its dean until 1911. Maxwell led the fledgling school through a difficult time when financial budgets were an issue and the consolidation of IU's and Purdue's medical school faculties in Indianapolis and Bloomington was completed. The combined faculty would support the four-year medical school at Indianapolis and maintain the two-year, pre-clinical coursework at Bloomington. In addition to Maxwell, other leaders in IUSM's early history were drawn from Johns Hopkins University, including Charles P. Emerson who was appointed as the second dean of IUSM in 1911 and served in that role until 1931.[27]

Willis Dew Gatch became the third dean of the medical school in 1932. In 1909, Gatch invented the Gatch adjustable hospital bed, which used a crank to raise and lower the patient's head and feet.[28] John D. VanNuys, a 1936 graduate of IUSM, became its fourth dean in 1947.[29] Amelia R. Keller, department of pediatrics, was the sole woman on the clinical faculty of the IU Medical School in Indianapolis after the school's consolidation with the Purdue School of Medicine in 1908.[29]

IUSM graduated its first class of twenty-seven students and conferred its first Doctor of Medicine degree in May 1907. The first graduation of the consolidated IU and Purdue schools of medicine took place the following year. IUSM's first black student, Clarence Lucas, graduated in 1908; the first woman graduate of the newly-consolidated school, Lillian Mueller, did so in 1909.[30]

Abraham Flexner, a renowned American educator whose work helped reform many medical schools, visited IUSM in November 1909. He noted in his later Flexner Report (1910): "The situation in the state [was], thanks to the intelligent attitude of the university, distinctly hopeful, though it will take time to work it fully."[31]

Flexner also made a recommendation for the progress of the school: "In order to make the school attractive to highly qualified students, it will be necessary (1) to employ full-time men in the work of the first two years, (2) to strengthen the laboratory equipment, (3) greatly improve the organization and conduct of the clinical courses."[32] The IU School of Medicine was one of few medical schools in the nation at the time to receive a positive evaluation from Flexner, primarily because of its strong emphasis on college preparatory coursework in the sciences prior to enrolling in medical school and its additional training in the basic sciences as part of its medical school curriculum.[33][34]

In its early years in Indianapolis, IUSM used the former State College of Physicians and Surgeons facilities (the former Central College of Physicians and Surgeons facilities), erected in 1902 and located at the corner of Market Street and Senate Avenue. After the consolidation of IUSM with the State College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Purdue School of Medicine in 1908, the medical school used the former Purdue school facilities (which were the former Medical College of Indiana's facilities) for about ten years while it secured financing to construct new medical school buildings. Several of the medical school's early buildings in Indianapolis were erected in the 1910s and 1920s on property that would eventually become the site of the IU Medical Center on the present-day IUPUI campus.[35]

In February 1912, IU acquired property on West Michigan Street, near the Indianapolis City Hospital (the modern-day Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital), to erect the Robert W. Long Hospital. Construction on the new teaching hospital began in 1912. Although its cornerstone was laid on November 1, 1912, the Great Flood of 1913 delayed the building's opening until 1914. Long Hospital was dedicated on June 15, 1914, and admitted its first patients the following day. Emerson Hall, another early medical school building, was constructed about 200 feet (61 m) northeast of Long Hospital and completed in the fall of 1919 at a cost of $257,699.[36] Long Hospital was considered for demolition in the 1950s and was ultimately replaced by University Hospital in 1970; the building remains in service to IU Health and IUSM as Long Hall.

Eskenazi Hospital, July 2022

The cornerstone of the Riley Hospital for Children was laid on October 7, 1923, and dedicated on October 7, 1924. The hospital, named in honor of Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley, was erected north of Long Hospital. The James Whitcomb Riley Association (now known as the Riley Children's Foundation) hoped to raise an initial $250,000 in funding to add to the state's appropriation. By 1923 it had received $911,518 in pledges from more than 30,000 citizens,[37] including $45,000 in donations from a mass fundraising event. Significant additions to the hospital were built over the years, including three in the 1930s: a Kiwanis Unit, dedicated in 1930; a Rotary Unit, dedicated in 1931; and a hydrotherapy pool in 1935.[38]

Another of the medical school's early teaching hospitals was the William H. Coleman Hospital for Women. Erected west of Long Hospital and dedicated on October 20, 1927, Coleman Hospital's total cost was about $300,000. Other early buildings erected on the medical school campus in Indianapolis included the Ball Residence for Nurses, dedicated on October 7, 1928;[38] and Fesler Hall, built in 1939. Myers Hall was built in Bloomington in 1937 for the medical students there. The school's medical research building was expanded in 1947 with a five-year grant from the Riley Children's Foundation. The VanNuys Medical Sciences Building opened in Indianapolis in 1958.[39]

Following the opening of VanNuys, all medical instruction was moved to Indianapolis.[17] About half of the Bloomington faculty moved, with the remaining faculty forming the Department of Anatomy and Physiology at IU Bloomington. Not wanting Myers Hall to go unused, IU president Herman B. Wells secured funding for an advanced degree program that combined the first two years of basic science training of the MD program with a master's degree or PhD.[17] A similar program was available at Stanford University at the time. Due to a projected shortage of American physicians in the early 1960s, some state politicians called for a second medical school.[17] IUSM ceased its consolidatory efforts in Indianapolis and instead looked for partners throughout the state to expand medical education; the first two years of medical education resumed at Bloomington as well.[17] IUSM found its partners in 1968 at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend and with its old rival, Purdue. About a dozen students at both Notre Dame and Purdue were allowed to complete the first two years at their regional campuses before transferring to Indianapolis.[17] In 1971, the state legislature established a statewide system for medical education, and five other first-year training sites were added throughout the state by 1981 at IU Northwest in Gary, Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne[lower-alpha 2], Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana State University in Terre Haute, and at a joint venture of the University of Evansville and the Evansville campus of Indiana State.[lower-alpha 3] By 1990 all regional campuses were able to provide the first two years of education before Indianapolis transfer (prior to this only Bloomington, South Bend, and West Lafayette provided the first two years).[17] Faced with another call for more physicians in the early 2000s, all campuses offered full four-year programs by 2014, allowing students to complete their degrees at a regional campus without transfer to Indianapolis.[17]

In August 2021, IUSM–Bloomington, along with IU Health Bloomington Hospital in December, moved into the newly-built Regional Academic Health Center (RAHC), making it one of two regional campuses to be located in a hospital or on hospital property. The other campus is IUSM–Muncie, which is located on Ball Memorial Hospital property. Also located in the RAHC are the Bloomington campuses of the IU School of Nursing and the IU School of Social Work, as well as the IU Bloomington Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Pathology.

On October 19, 2022, IUSM–Indianapolis broke ground to create a new, $230 million medical education and research building.[40]

The Scholarly Concentration Program is an optional experience that complements a student's core medical curriculum. Students may research topics of personal interest, complete a scholarly project, and submit a manuscript for publication along with a poster presentation of their project. Projects are traditionally begun in the first year, with presentation and publication by the end of year four.[44] Each campus hosts one to four topics that leverage the expertise of that particular campus.

The following are the concentration topics available at each campus:

The Evansville campus was founded in 1972 as part of IUSM's regional campus system founded in 1971 which would allow medical students to complete their first and second years away from Indianapolis. The first class of five students split their time between Indiana State University–Evansville (which would become the University of Southern Indiana (USI) in 1985) and the University of Evansville (UE).[49] Students attended gross anatomy lab in the back of UE's student union until better arrangements were established. In 1994, all courses moved to USI's Health Professions Center and in 2014, students were able to complete all four years at the regional campus. In 2018, courses moved to the new 145,000-square-foot (13,500 m²) Stone Family Center for Health Sciences in downtown Evansville.[50][49]

The Evansville campus includes expanded graduate medical education residencies through a consortium model with the Deaconess Health System, St. Vincent Evansville, Memorial Hospital and Health Care, and Owensboro Health.

In 2013, Indiana University, the University of Evansville, the University of Southern Indiana, and Ivy Tech Community College jointly signed letters of intent to co-locate a new interdisciplinary academic health science education in research campus in the Evansville region. The new campus was expected to open fall 2018.[51] The interdisciplinary campus plan included a 40,000-square-foot (3,700 m²) simulation center with an advanced collaborative space. The facility was planned to be a combination of immersive training space, research, and potential product development.

In addition to the Evansville campus of IUSM, the Stone Center also houses healthcare and related programs from USI, UE, and Ivy Tech.

• Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Center
• Bowen Research Center
• Center of Excellence in Women's Health
• Diabetes Translational Research Center
• Hartford Center of Excellence in Geriatric Medicine
• Herman B Wells Center for Pediatric Research
• Indiana Alcohol Research Center
• Indiana Alzheimer Disease Center
• Indiana Center for Musculoskeletal Health
• Indiana University Center for Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases[60]
• Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute
• Indiana Spinal Cord and Head Injury Research Center
• Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center
• Indiana University Center for Aging Research
• Institute of Psychiatric Research
• Krannert Institute of Cardiology
• Regenstrief Institute, Inc.[61]
• Stark Neurosciences Research Institute
• Wells Center for Pediatric Research