Vanderbilt University Medical Center history

The first degree awarded by this new University, in 1875, went to Henry William Morgan, and was a medical degree.

In 1895, the School of Medicine was reorganized under the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust.

The department was new, but anesthesiology as a specialty had been one of the best known areas of VUMC; the first ether-oxygen apparatus, an early anesthesia machine, had been developed at VUMC in 1907 by Doctor James Tayloe Gwathmey.

The school, which was founded in 1909, was one of the nation’s first nursing programs to incorporate its curriculum into a liberal arts degree.

A gift of $1M from the Carnegie Foundation in 1913 helped the University financially as they had just severed ties with the Methodist Church.

With a broad educational vision, and support from friends at Johns Hopkins, Kirkland was able in 1919 to get a $4 M gift from the Rockefeller Foundation, which enormously enhanced the stature of Vanderbilt.

The Junior League of Nashville's first major project was opening the Junior League Home for Crippled Children in 1923.

The years between the reorganization of the Medical Center and the beginning of the Second World War were active ones at VUMC. Waller Leathers replaced Canby Robinson as Dean in 1928, the same year the department of Pediatrics was established.

One of the Vanderbilt Medical School’s first major research grants was received in 1932 from the Rockefeller Foundation.

The department of Radiology was established in 1936.

The first major addition to the Medical Center building was made in 1938, as the D corridor was added at the rear of the structure to house, among other things, more patient rooms and the departments of Pediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynecology.

The first major development after the war was the 1945 establishment of the department of Anesthesiology.

In 1949, Doctor Wilkerson organized a board of directors and chartered the Tennessee Hearing and Speech Foundation.

Two years later, in 1951, the Foundation opened a clinic, hiring audiologist Doctor Freeman McConnell as its first director.

The University became a more diverse institution as students from around the country were drawn to Vanderbilt, and in 1952 the University opened its doors to minority students before the other private universities in the South did so.

A series of grants from the United States Public Health Service led in 1960, to the establishment of the federally funded Clinical Research Center.

In 1961, the Learned Lab was added to Medical Center North and the next year the West Wing, later more descriptively dubbed the Round Wing, opened.

In 1963, Doctor Randolph Batson was named Dean and Director of Medical Affairs, a position which evolved into the current position of Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs.

In 1970, the founding of Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital brought pediatric care to the forefront of the Medical Center’s patient care mission.

In 1971, Doctor Earl Sutherland was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, thereby serving notice that the Medical Center’s research mission was on a par with its patient care and education missions.

The building, which opened in 1977, contained School of Medicine classrooms and laboratories.

The home was moved again in 1980 into the freestanding Children's Hospital, now called Monroe Carell Jr.

While part of the college of Arts and Sciences until officially joining the Medical Center in 1984, the School of Nursing throughout its history was closely affiliated with the patient care activities of the Medical Center.

Doctor Stanley Cohen received a Nobel Prize in 1986, and shared the award with Doctor Rita Levi-Montalcini of Italy for their discovery of epidermal growth factor.

He served as medical director for many years, succeeded in 1988 by Ian Burr, M.D. Under Doctor Burr’s leadership, Children's Hospital grew to include more than 29 subspecialties.

Patient visits have continued to grow with hospital admissions above 31,000 in 1999, and outpatient visits approaching 600,000.