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Boston University School of Medicine

History

The New England Female Medical College was the first institution to medically train women, founded in 1848 . The institution was reformed and renamed in 1873 when Boston University merged with the New England Female Medical College. Upon the renaming, BUSM continued its progressive tradition of medical education for both men and women, and for all races and ethnicities.

Recent Class Profile

In the autumn of 2006, BUSM's first year medical students were 55% female, and 21% were of an ethnicity that is under-represented in medicine . Out of the 179 matriculated students, 114 are in the traditional MD program. Eighteen students were enrolled in the MD/PhD program, and the rest were in some other type of non-traditional MD track. BUSM also offers joint degrees with other Boston University graduate schools, allowing the medical students to earn an MD degree with a MBA, MPH, or PhD.

Over 11,000 people applied for admission to BUSM in 2007, for an total of 156 M.D. students and 12 M.D.-Ph.D. students from 27 states and 26 different countries represented in the 2007 entering class. Students' ages ranged from 20 to 40.

Notable Faculty

Karen H. Antman, MD-(2005-present) is provost of the Boston University’s Medical Campus and dean of Boston University School of Medicine. She was previously deputy director of the National Cancer Institute for Translational and Clinical Sciences.Antman received her MD degree from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1974, and did her residency in internal medicine training at Presbyterian Hospital (now NY Presbyterian Hospital) in New York City. After completing a fellowship in medical oncology at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, she joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School and was recruited to Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, where she was Wu Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology and director of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center. Best known among oncologists for developing a standard treatment regimen for sarcomas, as well as her team’s research on blood growth factors, Dr. Antman also is outspoken on public health policy issues. She has more than 300 publications to her credit and has written four textbooks, two in multiple editions. She has served as president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Association for Cancer Research and the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation. She served for seven years as an associate editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and currently serves on the international editorial board of the Lancet and several other major medical journals. She currently sits on the council of the National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Center.

David Atkinson, PhD (1975-present) is professor and chair of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics and research professor of biochemistry at Boston University School of Medicine. He received his undergraduate degree in applied physics from the City University of London, England, and his PhD in biophysics from the Council for National Academic Awards, England in 1975. He was appointed chair of the department in 2008. He has served on the editorial board of numerous journals and is currently associate editor of BioMed Central, Biochemistry and is a reviewer for the Journal of Lipid Research, the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Nature and Science. He is the principal investigator for the Program Project Grant: Structural and Cell Biology. He is a member of the British Biophysical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Heart Association, American Crystallographic Association and the Biophysical Society

James M. Becker, MD - (1994-present) is the James Utley Professor and Chair of the Department of Surgery at Boston University School of Medicine and surgeon-in-chief at Boston Medical Center. He completed his undergraduate education at Yale University, and his MD degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. He trained as a surgical resident and research fellow at the University of Utah School of Medicine and as an National Institutes of Health research fellow in digestive diseases at the Mayo Clinic. Becker, who is internationally known for his clinical and research work in inflammatory bowel disease, has been instrumental in refining and modifying the ileoanal pull-through procedure which has dramatically improved the surgical treatment of ulcerative colitis and familial adenomatous polyposis. His major research interests include gastrointestinal and biliary motility and electrophysiology, ileal function and dysfunction following colectomy with ileoanal anastomosis and the pathogeneses and prevention of abdominal adhesions. A member of numerous professional societies, he has served on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America, the Board of Trustees of Collegium Internationale Chirurgiae Digestivae, and the Committee on Operating Room Environment of the American College of Surgeons He has been a member of the editorial board of Surgery, the Journal of Surgical Research, Current Surgery, Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, the Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery, the Journal of Laparoendoscopic Surgery, Surgical Laparoscopy and Endoscopy and the Annals of Surgery. In 2004, he was named Humanitarian of the Year by the New England Chapter of the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America. He has been named among the best doctors in Boston and America as well as one of America’s top doctors for cancer.

David L. Coleman, MD (2006-present) is the Wade Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and chair of the Department of Medicine at Boston Medical Center. He completed his undergraduate education at Stanford University and received his MD degree from the University of California at San Francisco. He did his residency training in internal medicine at Yale-New Haven Hospital and Yale School of Medicine. He completed a fellowship in infectious diseases at Yale and joined the faculty of the Yale Department of Medicine in 1983. He served as chief of the Infectious Disease Section and chief of the Medical Service at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System and at the VA Medical Center in Denver, Colorado. His research interests include the basic mechanisms of macrophage activation. He has been the recipient of research grants and Career Development Awards from the National Institutes of Health and Department of Veterans Affairs and has served on national study sections including as chair of the Infectious Disease Merit Review Board of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Coleman has been involved in clinical care, medical education, and administration, writing on medical professionalism and particularly on relationships of physicians with industry and care of the uninsured. He has received numerous teaching awards and received the Special Contribution Award from the Department of Veterans Affairs in 1991 and 2002. He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians, the Infectious Disease Society of America and a member of the Association of Professors of Medicine.

Thomas A. Einhorn, MD (1997-present) is professor and chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Boston University School of Medicine, professor of biochemistry and biomedical engineering at Boston University, and chief of orthopaedic surgery at Boston Medical Center. He completed his undergraduate education at Rutgers University and received his MD degree from Cornell Medical College. He completed his internship at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, did his orthopaedic residency at St. Luke's - Roosevelt Hospital in New York City and did a fellowship at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. His areas of expertise and research include the repair and regeneration of bone and cartilage, reconstructive surgery of the hip and knee and the treatment of metabolic bone disease. The author of more than 165 peer-reviewed articles, he is dedicated to exploring the role of molecular medicine in orthopaedic surgery. He has served as chair of the Orthopaedics and Musculoskeletal Study Section of the National Institutes of Health, president of the Orthopaedic Research Society, president of the International Society for Fracture Repair and chair of both the Committee on Examinations and the Council on Research and Scientific Affairs of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. His awards include the Marshall R. Urist Award and the Alfred R. Shands, Jr. Award from the Orthopaedic Research Society, the Kappa Delta Award from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the Dr. Marian Ropes Physician Achievement Award from the Arthritis Foundation and the Marshall Schiff Award from the American College of Rheumatology. He has been named among the best doctors in Boston. He is deputy editor for Current Concepts Reviews for The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery and serves on the editorial boards of The Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, Journal of Orthopaedic Research and Bone.

Carlos S. Kase, MD (1984-present) is professor and chair of the Department of Neurology at Boston University School of Medicine and neurologist-in-chief at Boston Medical Center. He received his MD degree and did his residency at the Catholic University of Chile and served on the faculty there as well. He trained at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in neuropathology and completed his neurology training at the MGH. In 1978, he co-founded the neurology department at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama. His professional interests have been in the area of cerebrovascular diseases, performing clinical studies and clinico-pathologic correlations in intracerebral hemorrhage and cerebral infarction. Research activities have included participation in multicenter studies such as the Stroke Data Bank (NINCDS), epidemiologic studies such as the Framingham Heart Study, and therapeutic trials. Kase is a member of the American Medical Association, American Academy of Neurology, Stroke Council of the American Heart Association, American Neurological Association the and International Stroke Society. He is an honorary member of the Spanish Society of Neurology and a corresponding member of the Chilean Society of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry. He holds an honorary degree from the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. He is on the editorial board of Stroke, the Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases and Seminars in Cerebrovascular Diseases and Stroke. Other honors include teaching awards from medical students at the University of South Alabama and from residents in neurology at Boston University School of Medicine.

Mark Moss, PhD (1982-present) is professor and chair of the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology and is co-director for the Laboratory for Cognitive Neurobiology.at Boston University School of Medicine. He received his PhD degree in psychology from Northeastern University and completed postdoctoral training in neuroanatomy and neuropsychology at Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on the neurobiology of learning and memory in non-human primate models, particularly with respect to aging and age-related disease. Techniques include automated behavioral assessment, functional and structural MR imaging, and an array of immunocytochemical and related anatomical-morphological techniques. Moss is the recipient of a National Institutes (NIH) of Health MERIT award for his work on aging and hypertension. He is the leader of the Head and Neck section of the Medical Gross Anatomy Course, and co-directs graduate courses in the neurobiology of learning and memory, neurobiology of aging and cognitive neuroscience. He is director of an NIH Training Grant on the Neurobiology and Neuropsychology of Aging. He is involved in a Carnegie Foundation sponsored evaluation of the doctorate in neuroscience at a national level.

Osamu Shimomura, PhD── (1982-present) is an emeritus professor of physiology and 2008 winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Dr. Shimomura, also a senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., is credited with the discovery of green fluorescent protein, GFP, which he observed in 1962 in the jellyfish, Aequorea Victoria, found off the cost of North America. In the 1970s, Shimomura showed that GFP contains a special chromophore, a chemical group that absorbs and emits light. In an organism, GFP can be fused to proteins and researchers can observe the locations and movements of the studied proteins by monitoring the GFP which remains fluorescent. GFP has led to a scientific revolution as it is now used by researchers around the world to illuminate disease processes like tumor growth.

Notable alumni

Thomas R. Insel (1974) — Dr. Insel has been Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) since 2002. He joined NIMH in 1979, where he served in various scientific research positions until 1994 when he went to Emory University, Atlanta, as Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Emory University School of Medicine, and Director of the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center. Dr. Insel built one of the nation’s leading HIV vaccine research programs and served as the founding director of the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Dr. Insel’s research continues to study the role of oxytocin in social attachment and behavior.

John P. Howe III (1969) — After serving as the Chair in Health Policy at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Dr. Howe became President & CEO of on May 1, 2001. Project HOPE is an international health foundation with offices and programs in 24 countries on five continents. He is board certified in both internal medicine and cardiovascular disease, and a tenured professor in the University's Department of Medicine.

Marcia Angell (1967) — Dr. Angell served as Editor of the New England Journal of Medicine from 1999 to 2000. A board-certified pathologist, she joined the editorial staff of the New England Journal of Medicine in 1979, became Executive Editor in 1988, and Editor-in-Chief in 1999. Dr. Angell writes frequently on medical ethics, health policy, the nature of medical evidence, the interface of medicine and the law, and care at the end of life. She recently published Science on Trial: The Clash of Medical Evidence and the Law in the Breast Implant Case (1996, W. W. Norton & Company).

Peter J. Deckers (1966) — Dr. Deckers has served as Dean of the University of Connecticut School of Medicine since 1995 and Executive Vice President of Health Affairs since 2000.

Judith L. Vaitukaitis (1966) — Dr. Vaitukaitis retired recently from her position as Director of the National Center for Research Resources National Institutes of Health (NCRR), one of the 27 components of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. The NCRR is responsible for developing critical research technologies and providing cost-effective, multi-disciplinary resources for more than 35,000 biomedical investigators across the spectrum of NIH-supported research activities. Dr. Vaitukaitis joined NIH in 1986 and directed the NCRR's General Clinical Research Centers Program before being named Deputy Director. She became Director in 1993. Dr. Vaitukaitis has published over 160 scientific papers and edited a book, Clinical Reproductive Neuroendocrinology.

Mary Jane England (1964) — President of Regis College. In a career that combines public health, social service and psychiatry, Dr. England has served as Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Social Services, Associate Dean and Director of the Master of Public Administration Program at Harvard University, and Program Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Mental Health Services Program for Youth. In 2001 she was Chair of the National Advisory Mental Health Council's Work Group on Child and Adolescent Mental Health Intervention, Development, and Deployment, which produced the document Blueprint for Change: Research on Child and Adolescent Mental Health. She now serves on the task force for mental health chaired by Rosalynn Carter at the Carter Center.

Lawrence Yannuzzi (1964) — His pioneering use of angiography led to development of the test that is now central to the diagnosis and management of diabetic and related eye diseases. He is a Professor of Clinical Ophthalmology at Columbia University Medical School; Adjunct Professor of Ophthalmology at New York University; and is the Director and Founder of the Vitreoretinal Fellowship; Head and Founder of the LuEsther T. Mertz Retinal Research Center and The Macula Foundation, Inc. and the Vice-Chairman and Surgeon Director of Ophthalmology and Director of the Retinal Services at Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital.

Sarkis J. Kechejian (1963) — Dr. Kechejian is the President of K Clinics located in North Texas, predominately in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area; Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the board of Alliance Health, Inc. and president of the Kechejian Foundation. The charitable foundation he established provides support for education and Armenian-related projects. A fellow of the American College of Cardiology, he served as director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at Methodist Hospital in Dallas and was an Assistant Clinical Professor of Cardiology at Southwestern medical school. He established a private practice of invasive cardiology and in 1982 he opened the first K Clinic. In 1988 he chose to devote himself full-time to the administration of the K Clinics. He is a member of the American Medical Association, the Texas Medical Association and the Dallas County Medical Society.

Merwyn Bagan (1962) — Dr. Bagan retired from neurosurgical practice in 1993 and became President and Chairman of Healthsource New Hampshire from 1985 to 1993 and Chairman of Healthsource, Inc., from 1985 until 1997, when it was bought by CIGNA. Since 1995, Bagan has lived in Nepal as a volunteer at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, where he helped establish neurosurgery and spinal units. Bagan has been instrumental in obtaining more than $1 million in medical equipment for the hospital, and he was named Visiting Professor at the Tribhuvan University Institute of Medicine’s Department of Surgery in 1997. Bagan served as President of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the New England Medical Society.

Ralph David Feigin (1962) — J.S. Abercrombie Professor of Pediatrics and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine; Physician-in-Chief of the Texas Children's Hospital; Physician-in-Chief, Pediatric Services, Ben Taub General Hospital (Harris County Hospital District); and Chief of the Pediatric Service, The Methodist Hospital, Houston, Texas. Dr. Feigin is an internationally-renowned expert in pediatric infectious diseases and has over 500 published articles or chapters in journals and books. In addition, he is the co-author and co-editor of numerous books. He is Editor-in-Chief for the journal Seminars in Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Associate Editor for Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Mortimer J. Buckley (1958) — Chief, Cardiac Surgical Division, Massachusetts General Hospital; Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

Louis Wade Sullivan (1958) — President, Morehouse School of Medicine; former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. In 1975, Louis W. Sullivan, M.D., was the founding Dean and first President of Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM). With the exception of his tenure as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from 1989 to 1993, Dr. Sullivan was President of MSM for more than two decades. On July 1, 2002, he retired from the presidency, but continues to support MSM, assisting in national fund-raising activities on behalf of the school.

Artemis P. Simopoulos (1956) — President of The Center for Genetics, Nutrition and Health, and a member of the Board of Directors of the American Association for World Health in Washington, D.C. Dr. Simopoulos chaired the Nutrition Coordinating Committee at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from 1978 to 1986. Since 1984 her research has been on the evolutionary aspects of diet and the omega-6/omega-3 balance, such as the unique composition of the Greek egg and purslane.

Alan S. Cohen (1952) — Founding Editor and Editor of Amyloid: Journal of Protein Folding Disorders. He is a Distinguished Professor of Medicine in Rheumatology at Boston University School of Medicine. He is the author or editor of 12 books and more than 700 research publications. Dr. Cohen founded and directed BUSM’s Amyloid Treatment and Research Program and was the President of the American College of Rheumatology. Dr. Cohen isolated amyloid as a specific and unique fibrous protein, achieved its high resolution characterization for the first time with the electron microscope, and reported it at the First International Symposium on Amyloidosis, held in Groningen, The Netherlands in September, 1967.

George I. Lythcott (1943) — Dr. George Lythcott was regional director of a five-year assistance program to eradicate smallpox and measles in twenty West African countries. In 1969, Dr. Lythcott was appointed Associate Vice-Chancellor for Health Services at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and in 1977, President Jimmy Carter named him Assistant Surgeon General. He then served as Dean of City University Medical School. A delegate to World Health Organization meetings, he was also a consultant for the National Academy of Sciences in Pakistan, the Philippines, and the People's Republic of China.

Solomon Carter Fuller (1897) — The nation's first African-American psychiatrist, studied in Europe with Alois Alzheimer, and published the first English language review of Alzheimer's disease.

Charles Alexander Eastman—Ohiyesa (1890) — Raised as Ohiyesa, a Santee Sioux Indian, Eastman graduated from Dartmouth College before entering BUSM. After graduating in 1890, he tended to survivors at the Wounded Knee Massacre early in 1891. He later built a career as a writer and lecturer.

Rebecca Lee Dorsey (1883) — First Wellesley College graduate to receive an M.D. degree; the first woman (and second person) to be cured of [tuberculosis] by Koch method; was at Pasteur’s side when he administered first rabies vaccine to Joseph Meister, July, 1886; and the first woman physician in Los Angeles (1886).

Graduates of New England Female College (1848-1873) prior to the 1873 merger with Boston University include:

Rebecca Lee Crumpler (1864) — First African-American to receive an M.D. in the United States. She worked as a missionary physician for poor African-Americans in Richmond, Virginia, 1865-69, and then returned to Boston where she practiced into the 1890s. She published A Book of Medical Discourses (1883), which provided practical medical information to mothers, nurses and women in general.

Mary Harris Thompson (1863) — Dr. Thompson helped establish the Chicago Hospital for Women and Children in 1865. She also played an important role in organizing a women's medical college, the Women's Hospital Medical College, which in 1891 became a department at Northwestern University. She was the first woman in Chicago to perform major surgery, and was well-known throughout the Midwest. She specialized in abdominal and pelvic surgery.

Frances Sproat Cooke (1857) — Returned as a Professor of Physiology and Hygiene at New England Female Medical College, 1859-66; named Waterhouse Professor of Anatomy, Physiology and Hygiene from 1866-72; and Dean of the School from 1862-65.

For all the recipients of the Boston University School of Medicine Distinguished Alumni Award, .

For all the recipients of the Boston University Distinguished Alumni Award, .

Division of Graduate Medical Sciences

BUSM offers MA, MS, and PhD degrees through its Division of Graduate Medical Sciences (GMS). GMS offers the MA degree in Bioimaging, Clinical Investigation, Medical Sciences, and Mental Health Counseling and Behavioral Medicine. An MS degree is available in Biomedical Forensics and Genetic Counseling.

GMS also grants PhD or MD/PhD degrees in the following areas: