History

Throughout our history, we have maintained a strong commitment to diversity and serving its community in the context of studying and practicing medicine.

• 1848: The New England Female Medical College was founded, becoming the first institution in the U.S. to train women in medicine and graduated the first black female physician, Rebecca Lee Crumpler.
• 1873: Boston University merged with the New England Female Medical College, becoming the first accredited coeducational medical school in the U.S.
• 1890: The first Native American physician, Charles Eastman, graduated from the School. He was featured as the central figure in “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.”
• 1897: First African-American psychiatrist, Solomon Carter Fuller, graduated from the School.
• 1942: First section of gastroenterology in the U.S. was established at the School.
• 1944: First studies on the use of penicillin in civilians with infectious diseases.
• 1948: First medical school to work with the U.S. Public Health Service National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to identify risk factors for cardiovascular disease, creating the Framingham Heart Study.
• 1991: Susan Leeman, PhD, is elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Leeman is an endocrinologist and a pioneer in the field of neuroendocrinology.
• 2008: Nobel Prize for Chemistry awarded to Osamu Shimomura for his work on green fluorescent protein
• 2008: Construction ended and BU became the home of the NIH-funded National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, one of few such labs in the country.

In addition, the School pioneered medical education in many ways, including:

• Being among the first schools in the U.S. to offer the combined BA/MD degree
• Having the first combined cancer research and teaching laboratory established in the U.S.