Stanford University School of Medicine



Stanford University School of Medicine is affiliated with Stanford University and is located at Stanford University Medical Center in Stanford, California, adjacent to Palo Alto and Menlo Park. Originally based in San Francisco, California as Cooper Medical College, the medical school moved to the Stanford Campus in 1959. Stanford is now well known for its small class size and pass/fail grading system. The school has one of the best student-faculty ratios, with more than 200 basic science faculty as well as 400 in clinical disciplines. In 2006, 88.1% of graduates were admitted to one of their top three choices in residency programs, and 75.0% to their first-choice.

Rotations occur not only at the Stanford Hospital and Lucile Packard's Children hospital, but at other locations such as Kaiser, Santa Clara Valley Hospital and the Palo Alto VA which serve very distinct patient populations and increase diversity of patients and health care settings available to students. Stanford medical students also manage two free clinics: Arbor Free Clinic in Menlo Park and Pacific Free Clinic in San Jose. Stanford is a cutting-edge center for translational and biomedical research (both basic science and clinical) and this emphasis on novel methods, discoveries and interventions is brought into its curriculum. The new curriculum in 2003 encourages research, exploration, and self-direction.

Mission
The School of Medicine's mission is to be a premier research-intensive medical school that improves health through leadership and collaborative discoveries and innovation in patient care, education and research. The two Nobel prizes that its faculty received in the past year alone exemplifies the level of intellectual exploration that goes on at the institution.

Rankings
In the 2007 medical school survey, Stanford came in 7th position for research. The school has unparalleled opportunities for student research. Students apply for grants and engage in rigorous basic science research. The MD/PhD program is well run and provides students with lifelong mentors.

History
In 1908, Stanford University adopted the Cooper Medical College in San Francisco, CA as its affiliated medical institution. The school expanded and built up a reputation for excellence and providing cutting edge clinical care. In the 1950's, the Stanford Board of Trustees decided to move the school of the Stanford main campus in Palo Alto. Since then the faculty and students at the School of Medicine have made numerous contributions to both clinical and basic science innovations, cementing Stanford's international reputation as a leader in medicine.

In the 1980's the Medical Center launched a major expansion program. A new hospital was added in 1989 with 20 new operating rooms, state of the art intensive care and inpatient units, and other technological additions. The Lucile Packard Children's Hospital was completed in 1991, adding even more diversity to the Center. More construction is currently underway to further expand teaching and clinical opportunities.

The recently completed Clark Center houses interdisciplinary research endeavors and serves to reinforce Stanford's commitment to providing the best possible patient care through innovation.

New Curriculum Fall 2003
Classroom lectures are reduced from 30 hrs/week to 12-22 hrs/week. There are no classes on Wednesdays. The grading scheme is completely pass/fail and there is no AOA or other forms of an honor system as to encourage cooperation among students. Each student can choose from 1 of 12 Scholarly concentrations/majors. Students at Stanford learn to think and act as scientists- a unique angle in medical education.

Controversies
In 1998, after numerous complaints from students, the national agency that accredits medical schools came close to placing Stanford's School of Medicine on probation. The school received a letter (Feb. 17th) from Donald Kassebaum, MD, secretary of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) accrediting agency, stating that "Stanford has a fine medical school, and its graduates are splendid. [But] no school of the standing and quality and affluence of Stanford has instructional facilities that bad,".

In response, Stanford approved a $185 million, five-year plan to improve the School of Medicine and to address other issues brought up by students in 1999. Three months prior to the next visit from the accrediting agency (2005) various committees were formed to help the School of Medicine pass. A group of retired members of the LCME were recruited by Oscar Salvatierra, M.D., former professor of Transplantation and Nephrology. The committee on clinical training headed by Myriam Curet, M.D. Professor of general surgery, reviewed clerkship evaluations by medical students and issued recommendations. Subsequently, the medical school passed the accrediting agency visit with flying colors.

Smoking Ban
In August 2007 all types of smoking were banned at the SUSM.

Notable Research/Achievements

 * 1957 - Arthur Kornberg (then at Washington University) discovers the first DNA polymerase.
 * 1968 - first heart transplant in the USA by Norman Shumway.
 * 1970 - Leonard Herzenberg develops the fluorescence-activated cell sorter (FACS) which revolutionizes the study of cancer cells and will be essential for purification of adult stem cells
 * 1973 - Berg and Cohen (and Boyer at UCSF) essentially starts the biotechnology era with developments in methods of DNA cloning
 * 1990 - Roger Kornberg discovers the Mediator of transcriptional activation, which links gene regulatory signals to the RNA polymerase machinery in all eukaryotes.
 * 1996 - Matt Scott identifies gene for basal cell carcinoma
 * 2006 - Roger Kornberg gets the Nobel prize for reporting the structure of eukaryotic RNA polymerase II at atomic resolution, the most complex protein structure solved to date.

Notable Alumni

 * Irving Weissman- Leading Stem Cell Biologist. Founder of Systemix and Stem Cells Inc.
 * Peter Kim - President of Merck Research Laboratories
 * David D. Burns - Psychiatrist and author
 * William Brody - President of Johns Hopkins University
 * John Baldwin - Former Dean of Dartmouth Medical School

Notable Faculty Members

 * Paul Berg - Biochemist. Nobel Laureate.
 * Patrick Brown - Developer of the microarray for the masses.
 * Andrew Z. Fire - Winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
 * Arthur Kornberg - Winner of the 1959 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (with Severo Ochoa) for their discovery of the mechanisms of the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid.
 * Roger Kornberg - Winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and son of Arthur Kornberg. Discoverer of nucleosome  and transcriptional Mediator. Member of National Academy of Sciences.
 * Donald Laub - Founder of Interplast, Inc.
 * Joshua Lederberg - Nobel Laureate.
 * Kate Lorig - Director of the Stanford Patient Education Research Center
 * Norman Shumway - Heart transplant pioneer.
 * Irving Weissman - Leading Stem Cell Biologist. Founder of Systemix and Stem Cells Inc.
 * Roger Kornberg gets the Nobel prize for reporting the structure of eukaryotic RNA polymerase II at atomic resolution.

References in Popular Culture

 * Dr. Cristina Yang, a character on the popular medical television drama Grey's_anatomy is a Stanford alumna and 'graduated first in her class', despite Stanford's medical school not actually having grades or rankings


 * Nick Rubashkin- Stanford Alum and Co-Editor of What I Learned in Medical School-personal stories of young doctors