University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is the medical school of the University of Pittsburgh, located in Pittsburgh, PA.

As of 2007, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine consists of 589 medical students - 53% men and 47% women. 29% of these students are Pennsylvania residents. The School of Medicine also has enrolled 279 Ph.D. candidates pursuing a doctorate degree in a biomedical science. This number also includes all medical students currently seeking an MD/PhD.

The School of Medicine is included as a member of the "13 School Consortium" of elite medical schools. Members of this group include Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, Duke University School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Pritzker School of Medicine (University of Chicago), University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Washington University School of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University, and Yale University School of Medicine.

Admission to the School of Medicine has become extremely competitive in recent years. In 2007, the school received 5,595 applications for 145 seats. The School of Medicine's 2007 matriculants are scoring a composite average of about 34.5 on the Medical College Admission Test (~92nd percentile) with an average 3.76 undergraduate GPA - placing Pitt in the top decile of American medical schools according to this metric. 59% of the school's 2007 graduates matched to residencies at one of America's fifteen highest ranked academic medical centers.

The School of Medicine consists of the following 28 departments: Anesthesiology; Biomedical Informatics; Cell Biology and Physiology; Computational Biology; Critical Care Medicine; Dermatology; Emergency Medicine; Family Medicine; Immunology; Medicine; Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry; Neurobiology; Neurological Surgery; Neurology; Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences; Ophthalmology; Orthopaedic Surgery; Otolaryngology; Pathology; Pediatrics; Pharmacology; Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation; Psychiatry; Radiation Oncology; Radiology; Structural Biology; Surgery; and Urology.

The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is an important center for medical research: it and its affiliates received nearly $446 million in NIH support in fiscal year 2006. This level of support places Pitt at #6 (behind Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Penn, UCSF, and Washington) out of the 123 American medical schools that received Federal research funding in fiscal year 2006. In addition, the School of Medicine received nearly $135 million of support through a synergistic relationship with its associated hospital system: the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. A major aim of the School of Medicine's research in coming years, among others, is to monitor gene expression and its consequences on a cell, in vivo, on a molecular scale using nuclear magnetic resonance. In addition, the School of Medicine aims to increase the number of physician-scientists it graduates - a goal hampered by crushing medical student debt (average debt upon graduation is $138,093, with 19% of graduates over $200,000). A focus on translational research - moving recent biomedical research from the laboratory into mainstream clinical practice - is also emphasized.

The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is affiliated with the highly-ranked University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.