Boston University School of Medicine

Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) is one of the graduate schools of Boston University. It is an American medical school located in the South End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts.

History
BUSM was formed in 1873 when Boston University merged with the New England Female Medical College. The New England Female Medical College was the first institution to medically train women, and it was founded in 1848. Thus, when Boston University absorbed the medical college, BUSM continued its tradition of medical education.

Clinical Affiliates

 * Boston Medical Center — Boston, MA
 * Boston Veterans Administration Medical Center (West Roxbury) — West Roxbury, MA
 * Boston Veterans Administration Medical Center (Jamaica Plain) — Jamaica Plain, MA
 * Roger Williams Medical Center — Providence, RI
 * Quincy Medical Center — Quincy, MA
 * Bay Ridge Hospital — Lynn, MA
 * Beverly Hospital — Beverly, MA
 * Bournewood Hospital — Brookline, MA
 * Brockton Hospital — Brockton, MA
 * Cape Cod Hospital — Hyannis, MA
 * Carney Hospital — Dorchester, MA
 * Central Maine Medical Center — Lewiston, ME
 * Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital — Bedford, MA
 * Franciscan Children’s Hospital & Rehab. Center — Brighton, MA
 * Harrington Memorial Hospital — Southbridge, MA
 * Human Resource Institute — Brookline, MA
 * Columbia MetroWest Medical Center — Framingham, MA
 * North Shore Children’s Hospital — Salem, MA
 * Norwood Hospital — Norwood, MA
 * Westwood Lodge Hospital — Westwood, MA

2006-07 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 10,000 people applied for admission to BUSM in 2006. The students that matriculated had an average undergraduate GPA of 3.73, and an average MCAT total of 31.98. The students' ages ranged from 20 to 34.

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 Project HOPE 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.
 * George 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 Distiguished Alumni Award, click here.

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

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 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: