Harvard Medical School (
HMS) is one of the graduate schools of
Harvard University. It is currently ranked first among American research medical schools by
U.S. News and World Report.
Located in the
Longwood Medical Area of the
Mission Hill neighborhood of
Boston, Massachusetts, H.M.S. is home (as of Fall 2006) to 616 students in the
M.D. program, 435 in the
Ph.D. program, and 155 in the M.D.-Ph.D program.
HMS' M.D.-Ph.D program allows a student to receive an M.D. from HMS and a Ph.D from either Harvard or the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (
see Medical Scientist Training Program).
The school has a large and distinguished faculty to support its missions of education, research, and clinical care. These faculty hold appointments in the basic science departments on the HMS Quadrangle, and in the clinical departments located in multiple
Harvard-affiliated
hospitals and institutions in
Boston. There are approximately 2,900 full- and part-time voting faculty members consisting of assistant, associate, and full professors, and over 5,000 full or part-time non-voting instructors.
Prospective students apply to one of two tracks to the M.D. degree.
New Pathway, the larger of the two programs, emphasizes
problem-based learning.
HST, operated by the
Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, emphasizes medical research.
The current dean of the medical school is Dr. Jeffrey S. Flier, an endocrinologist and the former Chief Academic Officer of the
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
History
thumb| Harvard Medical School quadrangle, view from Longwood Avenue.The school is the third oldest medical school in the U.S. and was founded by Dr.
John Warren on September 19th, 1782 with
Benjamin Waterhouse, and
Aaron Dexter. The first lectures were given in the basement of Harvard Hall and then in
Holden Chapel. The first class, composed of two students, graduated in 1788.
It moved from
Cambridge to 49 Marlborough Street in
Boston in 1810. From 1816 to 1846, the school, known as Massachusetts Medical College of Harvard University, was located on Mason Street. In 1847, the school relocated to North Grove Street, and then to Copley Square in 1883. The medical school moved to its current location on Longwood Avenue in 1906, where the "Great White Quadrangle" with its five white marble buildings was established. The architect for the campus was the Boston firm of
Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge.
The Harvard Medical School Dubai Center (HMSDC) Institute for Postgraduate Education and Research launched in 2004 through a joint effort by
Partners Harvard Medical International and
Dubai Healthcare City (DHCC), HMSDC is part of the Government of Dubai’s mission to develop DHCC into a center of excellence for health care delivery, medical education, and research.
Teaching affiliates
Student life
Second Year Show
Every winter, second year students at HMS write, direct and perform a full length musical parody, lampooning Harvard, their professors, and themselves. 2007 was the Centennial performance as the Class of 2009 presented "Joseph Martin and the Amazing Technicolor White Coat" to sellout crowds at Roxbury Community College on February 22, 23 and 24.
Societies
Upon matriculation, medical and dental students at Harvard Medical School are divided into five societies named after famous HMS alumni. Each society has a master along with several associate society masters who serve as academic advisors to students . In the New Pathway program, students work in small group tutorials and lab sessions within their societies. Every year, the five societies compete in "Society Olympics" for the famed Pink Flamingo in a series of events (e.g. dance-off, dodgeball, limbo contest) that test the unorthodox talents of the students in each society. HST currently possesses the Pink Flamingo, having won it four years in a row.
In fiction
In
Samuel Shem's book,
The House of God, the medical school and its students are referred to as
BMS (Best Medical School/Students). The novel is set in the famed
Beth Israel Deaconess hospital in
Boston where the author spent his internship year.
In
Erich Segal's book,
Doctors, the main plot is set in Harvard Medical School (HMS) where the main characters attend.
In the movie
21, Ben Campbell's goal is to attend Harvard Medical School (HMS) with proper funding.
Notable alumni
- Fe del Mundo - pediatrician, first Filipino and possibly first woman admitted to HMS (1936)
- Paul Farmer - infectious disease physician; global health
- Ernest Gruening - Governor of the Alaska Territory (1939-53); U.S. Senator (1959-69)
- Alice Hamilton - first female faculty member at Harvard Medical School.
- Bernadine Healy - Director of the National Institutes of Health (1991-93); CEO of the American Red Cross (1999-2001)
- Jim Kim - physician, global health leader
- Leonard Wood - Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army ; Governor-General of the Philippines
- David Wu - Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1999-present)
Fictional alumni
- Dr. John Becker - character on the sitcom Becker
- Paris Geller - character on Gilmore Girls, commits to attending the school at the end of the series after her term as an undergraduate from Yale
- Bernard Nadeau in Francoeur, as a French-Canadian doctor who becomes the mayor of Orleans, Ontario.
- Dr. Elliot Nussbaum from Drake & Josh graduated at age 13 and was published in The New England Journal of Medicine at the age of 15.
- Father Damien Carrass in "The Exorcist". Psychologist trained at Harvard.
- Colleen Cooper, a character from Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
See also
