History

Excerpts from “If These Walls Could Talk, Oh the Stories They Could Tell”

written by the late Evangeline T. Papageorge (the first woman appointed to the full time medical faculty at Emory, and later the school’s first female administrator as Dean of Students)

The practice of medicine in the first part of the 19th century in the United States was called heroic because of the heroic measures usually prescribed. These were based on the three principles: bloodletting, blisters, and purgation. Such practices led to frequent resort to quackery and self-remedies, and ultimately the development of various “schools” reflecting the fads and fancies of the day. By the middle of the century, the general pattern was to require attendance at short sessions of lectures and three years of reading with a practitioner. Many physicians practiced without any formal training other than an apprenticeship. In all but a few states, proper legislation providing for dissection was lacking, leading to widespread grave robbery. Another serious problem was a lack of adequate facilities for clinical instruction.

On the approval of a charter for Atlanta Medical College by the Georgia legislature on February 14, 1854, a group of Atlanta physicians joined together to launch the new school. One of the first tasks was to petition the city council for use of a city and county building for classroom space. Another job was to advertise for professors to fill eight department chairs (anatomy, medicine, surgery, obstetrics and diseases of women and children, physiology, surgical and pathological anatomy, chemistry, and materia medica). The first class session opened in May. Classes were held at the new city-county hall building, located where the Georgia State Capitol now stands. At that time, at least three other medical colleges operated in the state and there was fierce competition for students and tuition fees (which were $105 for the first four-month session). The first course of lectures was completed on August 27, 1855 , followed by three days of examination. Commencement exercises were held September 1 and the first 32 students were graduated. Admission to examination for the degree required candidates to be 21 years of age and of good moral character.

In 1858, the college took steps toward improving what was minimal clinical instruction: one medical and one surgical clinic were scheduled each week, in addition to lectures by faculty in these departments. By 1860 the number of clinics for students was increased to three surgical and three medical each week.

Despite the fact that the school split and merged twice during it’s first six decades, the new school prevailed against the odds. Emory’s long-standing association with Grady Memorial Hospital (the base of clinical education at Emory School of Medicine) has been a key component in shaping skills and attitudes for a lifetime of learning how to practice medicine with compassion and courage. Referred to as a “marriage of opposites”, the relationship between an up-and-coming medical school and an urban hospital for the poor that began over 150 years ago has flourished. Today, Emory School of Medicine joins cutting-edge teaching and world-class research with patient-centered and socially-conscious clinical training. The school has emerged from its beginnings as a small, struggling program to a place as one of the top medical centers in the country.

The following timeline marks some of the events, people, and milestones that for 150 years have shaped Emory’s remarkable growth. It celebrates momentous strides in heart disease, eye disease, Parkinson’s/movement disorders, sickle cell, stroke, infectious disease, transplantation, diabetes, and bioengineering. It commemorates faculty who have trained thousands of doctors, who in turn have treated hundreds of thousands of patients. It shows that 150 years is not so long a time after all—especially when you consider all that we’ve learned and accomplished.

1854 – Atlanta Medical College, the earliest forerunner of Emory University School of Medicine, is founded by the Georgia General Assembly. Tuition for the first 16-week semester is $105.

1856 – The first building of the Atlanta Medical College opens at the corner of Butler and Jenkins Streets. This location continues to serve as a center of medical education in Atlanta , even today (Emory’s new Faculty Office Building now stands on this site).

1857 – The Atlanta Medical College is represented for the first time at a meeting of the American Medical Association, held in Nashville .

1861 – Classes are suspended during the Civil War. The college’s building is damaged by shellfire, and its furnishings and equipment are destroyed. Classes resume on August 16, 1865 .

1866 – The city council donates $5,000 in city bonds to repair and refurnish the college’s building.

1876 – Atlanta Medical College , under the leadership of Dean J.T. Johnson, introduces special clinics for eye and ear treatment, diseases of women, and venereal diseases, in addition to the regular medical and surgical clinics.

1878 – Atlanta Medical College faculty member, Thomas Powell, joins with other doctors to establish the Southern Medical College.

1879 – Atlanta Medical College extends the length of its semester from 16 to 20 weeks.

1880 – Atlanta Medical College graduates 48 students—the largest class since the Civil War.

1887 – Enrollment at Atlanta Medical College rises to 117. Expected revenue is $7,000.

1892 – Grady Memorial Hospital opens to serve a largely underserved indigent population. The site on Butler Street is selected because of its proximity to Atlanta Medical College (which is across the street). A new building for the rival Southern Medical College, is erected on Butler Street , next door to the Atlanta Medical College .

1895 – Atlanta Medical College installs a telephone in its building. Professors are no longer required to issue a ticket for admission to class for each student. Curriculum changes from two to three lecture courses per semester.

1896 – Enrollment at Atlanta Medical College is reported at 171 students, with revenue of $16,500.

1898 – Atlanta Medical College and Southern Medical College agree to consolidate their schools to form the Atlanta College of Physicians and Surgeons. The building for Southern Medical College closes, and the new school meets in the original building of the Atlanta Medical College at Butler and Armstrong Streets.

1905 – Dean W.S. Kendrick resigns from the Atlanta College of Physicians and Surgeons and establishes a competing school, the Atlanta School of Medicine. The new school shares headquarters with the Atlanta Dental School .

1906 – The original building of the Atlanta Medical College , now operating as the Atlanta College of Physicians and Surgeons, is razed and a new building is erected on the same site.

1908 – Rivalry between the Atlanta College of Physicians and Surgeons and the newer Atlanta School of Medicine becomes fierce, with the new school publicizing its enhanced teaching methods, including the use of drawings to teach anatomy and an emphasis on bedside learning.

1910 – Enrollment at the Atlanta College of Physicians and Surgeons climbs to 334—the highest to date. In this same year, the Carnegie Foundation commissions Abraham Flexner to take the pulse of medical education in America . His report is a scathing critique, concluding that medical education in this country was in a sorry condition. He recommends that medical schools either align with a university or get out of the business of teaching medicine.

1913 – The Flexner Report of 1910, combined with pressure from the American Medical Association, convinces the Atlanta College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Atlanta School of Medicine to consolidate to form the Atlanta Medical College (reprising the name from the original institution of 1854).

1915 – Coca-Cola founder Asa Candler donates $1 million to establish the Emory University campus in Atlanta . Emory College is moved from Oxford , Georgia to join the Atlanta campus. Emory University School of Medicine was formed this same year when Atlanta Medical College transferred its holdings to the University. The University pledged to endow $250,000 to the medical school.

1917 – Lt. Col. Edward C. Davis, who had served on the faculty of the Atlanta School of Medicine, develops and organizes the Emory Unit, also known as Base Hospital 43. This medical unit, largely composed of medical school faculty and alumni, specializes in the treatment of victims of war gas.

1917 – The Scott (anatomy) lab and the Fishburne (physiology) lab open on Emory’s Atlanta campus. The medical school moves its first and second year students from Grady Memorial Hospital to the Emory campus.

1921 – Frank Boland, former faculty member at the Atlanta School of Medicine and member of the Emory Unit, is chosen as the first president of Emory’s Medical Alumni Association.

1921 – Emory physicians are given charge over Grady’s hospital for African-American patients, located in the medical school building across the street from Grady.

1922 – Wesley Memorial Hospital is dedicated on the Emory campus.

1923 – The medical school receives $10,000 from F. Phinizy Calhoun Sr. to establish the A.W. Calhoun medical library (named for Phinizy’s father).

1923 – Home “Butch” Blincoe begins a 21-year “reign of terror” as chair of anatomy at the medical school. His intolerance of lack of mastery of his subject quickly becomes legendary among students. (One former student said that when he was in a foxhole during WWII, he took comfort in the fact that “at least he wasn’t in Blincoe’s anatomy class!”)

1925 - Russell Oppenheimer is named dean of the medical school. He is referred to as the “one man medical school” because of his numerous administrative roles (dean, professor, administrative chair of the Department of Medicine, superintendent, and medical directory of Emory University Hospital ).

1925 – Medical alumni who graduated prior to the 1915 merger are given an opportunity to receive a new Emory University diploma in exchange for one awarded by one of Emory’s forebear medical schools.

1929 – Evangeline Papageorge becomes the first woman appointed to the full-time faculty at the medical school. She would later become the school’s first female administrator when she is appointed dean of the students in 1956. She is remembered fondly by legions of alumni, who created the Papageorge Teaching Award in her honor.

1930 – Daniel Elkin becomes chair of surgery, serving until 1954. He improves surgical curriculum, elevating classroom teaching to equal footing with clinical training, and adding a year to the surgical residency program.

1930 – Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center is established in Florida (later acquired by Emory in 1956, it moved to Atlanta in 1965, and is now called Yerkes National Primate Research Center ).

1931 – Emory medical instruction at Grady Memorial Hospital , previously restricted to the African-American wards, is extended to the white wards, as well.

1932 – Wesley Memorial Hospital changes its name to Emory University Hospital .

1937 – Coca-Cola leader Robert W. Woodruff donates $50,000 to found a cancer clinic named for his grandfather (known today as the Winship Cancer Institute).

1940 – At the request of the U.S. Surgeon General, Emory organizes its second Emory Unit in preparation for service in WWII.

1940 – Crawford W. Long Hospital is deeded to Emory, as a gift from Luther Fischer to take effect at his death. The hospital came under Emory management in 1953, and today is known as Emory University Hospital Midtown.

1943 – Elizabeth Gambrell becomes the first woman to be admitted to Emory’s School of Medicine .

1946 – Bruce Logue, often called the Father of Cardiology at Emory, establishes Emory’s first cardiology residency at Grady Memorial Hospital . He continues to help establish a strong relationship between cardiology and cardiac surgery.

1946 – The VA Medical Center enters into an agreement, stipulating that Emory would be responsible for patient care in return for use of VA facilities for teaching and research.

1947 – Phinizy Calhoun Jr. performs the state’s first corneal transplant at Emory University Hospital , and is later credited with bringing modern ophthalmology to Georgia .

1949 – Cardiologist J. Willis Hurst develops the first standard preparation of digitalis for children.

1949 – Members of the Emory faculty establish the Private Diagnostic Clinic to be closer to their patients at Emory University Hospital (this clinic is the forerunner to the present day Emory Clinic).

1949 – Phinizy Calhoun Jr. helps establish an eye bank (the fifth ever established in the United States) to serve patients in the southeast needing cornea transplants.

1951 – Emory heart surgeon Osler Abbott performs the first intracardiac operation in the southeast for mitral valve stenosis (not yet “open heart” surgery, as the heart-lung machine was not available until 1955).

1952 – The Woodruff Memorial Research Building , named for Robert Woodruff’s father, is constructed on Emory’s campus.

1953 – The Emory Clinic is organized to enable physicians to maintain private practices while also teaching and doing research at Emory. Robert Woodruff funded the clinic, with the idea that the clinic would be self-sustaining and would make the medical school so, as well.

1954 – Wesley Woods is founded to meet housing and healthcare needs of the elderly. The medical school’s relationship with Wesley Woods continues to make Emory a hub for pioneering advances in geriatric care and research and in teaching geriatrics as a specialty.

1957 – J.D. Martin becomes the chair of surgery. He later integrates the disparate surgical residency programs at Grady, Emory, and the VA Medical Center to bring them together as one unified program.

1958 – J. Willis Hurst starts a cardiac catheterization lab in a building annexed to Emory University Hospital .

1958 – Grady Memorial Hospital’s new 18-story building is completed and occupied.

1959 – Henrietta Egleston Hospital for Children (now Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston) relocates from Forest Avenue to the Emory campus.

1960 – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is built adjacent to Emory’s campus.

1960 – Emory University Hospital , with the aid of grants from the U.S. Public Health Service, becomes one of eight hospitals in the nation to establish an extensive clinical research facility.

1960 – Cardiologist Nanette Wenger is appointed director of the cardiac clinics at Grady Memorial Hospital . She would go on to become a leading expert in heart disease in women.

1962 – Emory trustees take the lead in ending racial segregation of private higher education in Georgia , successfully suing to overturn restrictive provisions of the state’s constitution.

1962 – Charles R. Hatcher performs Georgia ’s first “blue baby” operation using open heart surgery. He goes on to build the heart surgery program at Emory into one of the nation’s largest and most successful.

1963 – Hamilton Holmes becomes Emory’s first African-American medical student. He later becomes an orthopedic surgeon and is eventually named medical director of Grady Memorial Hospital .

1963 – Charles Hatcher performs Georgia ’s first aortic valve replacement surgery.

1964 – Asa Yancey becomes the first African-American member of the medical faculty at Emory. He later becomes the medical director at Grady Memorial Hospital .

1966 – The Robert W. Woodruff Medical Center (later renamed The Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center) is established.

1966 – Georgia ’s first intrauterine transfusion to save the life of a fetus threatened by Rh negative blood reaction is performed at Emory University Hospital .

1966 – Georgia ’s first coronary arteriogram is performed at Grady Memorial Hospital .

1966 – Georgia ’s first kidney transplant is performed by Garland Perdue.

1970 – Charles Hatcher performs Georgia ’s first successful coronary bypass surgery at Emory University Hospital .

1971 – A $25 million expansion plan for Crawford Long Hospital is announced, including a nine-story addition.

1972 – Emory University Hospital begins a $30 million additional to patient care and teaching facilities.

1974 – John Stone founds the residency program in emergency medicine.

1979 – Ralph Vogler performs Emory’s first bone marrow transplant on a patient with acute leukemia.

1979 – Emory University receives $105 million from the Emily and Ernest Woodruff Fund, the largest gift given to an educational institution in U.S. history and the lead gift in the $160 million campaign to support scholarships, teaching, research, and building projects across the University.

1980 – The National Eye Institute selects Emory to direct the prospective evaluation of radial keratotomy study, the largest and most comprehensive clinical investigation of the procedure to correct myopia.

1982 – The Carter Center is founded by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn. In partnership with Emory University, The Carter Center is committed to advancing human rights and alleviating unnecessary human suffering. The Atlanta-based center located near the Emory campus has helped to improve the quality of life for people in more than 65 countries.

1982 – Emory doctors inject a thrombolytic agent into the coronary artery of a patient to stop a heart attack, the first use of this treatment in Georgia .

1984 – Richard Krause is recruited from the NIH to become dean at the Emory medical school. His mandate is to build Emory’s reputation in research to be on par with that of teaching and patient care.

1985 – Surgeons at Emory perform Atlanta ’s first heart transplant.

1985 – Robert W. Woodruff dies on March 7 at Emory University Hospital . During his lifetime, he gave away an estimated $350 million, including $230 million to Emory University .

1986 – Luella Klein becomes the first female chair of a department (gynecology and obstetrics) at Emory.

1986 – Atlanta industrialist, O. Wayne Rollins, donates $10 million for construction of the Rollins Research Center . The new building doubles the research space at Emory and helps to set the stage for Emory researchers to apply for and receive millions of dollars in research grants.

1987 - The nation’s first freestanding geriatric hospital is built at Emory’s Wesley Woods complex.

1987 – Emory doctors perform Georgia ’s first liver transplant.

1987 – John Douglas and colleagues perform the first coronary stent implant in the United States .

1987 – Emory doctors insert the first implantable defibrillator in a patient in Georgia .

1988 – Emory doctors perform Georgia ’s first directional atherectomy to scrape and remove plaque from arterial walls.

1988 – Emory surgeon Kirk Kanter performs the state’s first pediatric heart transplant on a 3-year old girl at Egleston Hospital .

1988 – Jeffrey Houpt becomes dean of the medical school. During his tenure, annual research income grows to almost $99 million.

1989 – Emory surgeons perform Georgia ’s first kidney-pancreas transplant.

1989 – The American Cancer Society moves its national headquarters adjacent to Emory’s campus.

1989 – The Emory Eye Center performs its first vision correction surgery with an excimer laser.

1990 – The medical school helps to establish a new School of Public Health from its masters in community health program begun in 1975.

1992 – Neurologist Mahlon DeLong and colleagues perform their first pallidotomy on a patient, using brain mapping to guide placement of lesions and electrodes. Later, state of the art surgery for Parkinson’s would shift to deep brain stimulation, involving placement of pacemaker-like electrodes to control symptoms of Parkinson’s and other movement disorders. This work would help make Emory known as one of the premier Parkinson’s centers in the world, with more movement disorder specialists than any center in the country.

1993 – The Emory Heart Center is formed to coordinate Emory’s cardiac services at various locations under one umbrella.

1993 – Emory surgeons perform Atlanta ’s first lung transplant.

1994 – The School of Public Health is renamed the Rollins School of Public Health in honor of donor O. Wayne Rollins.

1995 – The Emory Eye Center is approved by the FDA to sponsor a study of laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK).

1996 – The Robert W. Woodruff, Joseph B. Whitehead, and Lettie Pate Evans foundations create and fund the Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center Fund with grants of Coca-Cola stock totaling $295 million. Income from the fund is dedicated to the development of the Health Sciences Center and the Winship Cancer Institute.

1996 – Thomas J. Lawley is appointed Dean of the School of Medicine . Under his leadership, the School of Medicine achieves unprecedented growth in research space, grants, and collaborative partnerships.

1997 – Emory doctors perform the world’s first minimally invasive triple “keyhole” off-pump coronary artery bypass surgery, using mini–CABG instruments.

1997 – Emory surgeons perform the state’s first split living-related liver transplant, from mother to son.

1997 – Emory surgeons successfully split a donated liver into two portions and then transplant the left lateral segment into a 21-month old girl and the larger portion into a 42-year old woman.

1997 – Emory doctors implant the first biventricular pacemaker in Georgia .

1998 – The NIH designates Emory as one of three Parkinson’s Disease Research Center of Excellence.

1998 – Emory doctors perform the world’s first unrelated umbilical cord blood transplant for sickle cell anemia on a 12-year old boy at Egleston Children’s Hospital.

1998 – Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory create the first joint, two-school Department of Biomedical Engineering in the country.

1998 – Emory clinicians begin use of virtual reality devices to treat debilitating fear of flying and later, post-traumatic stress disorder.

1999 – Emory doctors implant Georgia ’s first dual-pump ventricular-assist device.

1999 – Emory dedicates a new 4-story, 75,000 square ft Vaccine Research Center .

2001 – Emory doctors implant drug-eluting stents in clogged arteries as part of a landmark study to see if the devices reduce incidence or restenosis.

2001 – The Whitehead Biomedical Research Building opens, built with funds from the foundations whose patriarch, Joseph B. Whitehead, was the first to sell Coca-Cola in bottles.

2002 – Based on a gene discovery made at Emory, the FDA approves a protein-stimulating bone growth that provides an alternative to painful bone grafts.

2003 – Emory doctors Chris Larsen and Thomas Pearson perform Georgia ’s first islet cell transplant to cure a 42-year old patient who had diabetes since the age of 8.

2003 – The Winship Cancer Institute (WCI) dedicates it’s new 280,000 square ft building, integrating cancer clinicians and researchers under the same roof for the benefit of patients. WCI also receives a planning grant from the National Cancer Institute, a crucial step toward WCI’s goal of NCI designation as a “comprehensive” cancer center.

2003 – Emory clinicians perform the country’s first artificial cornea transplant, the world’s fifth nonsurgical repair of a faulty mitral valve, and Georgia ’s first endoscopic closed-chest, off-pump cardiac bypass surgery.

2004 – The Department of Biomedical Engineering, only six years in existence, is ranked second in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.

2007 – After nearly 3 years of planning involving hundreds of medical faculty and students, and key members of Emory’s schools of nursing, public health, and graduate programs in the arts and sciences, Emory School of Medicine implements its innovative new medical curriculum. This exciting program was carefully designed after extensive consultation with other renowned medical institutions and educational experts in the United States and the United Kingdom. The new curriculum reflects the extraordinary advances taking place in biomedical science; meets the needs of an ever-changing local and global healthcare environment; takes advantage of the unique educational resources in Atlanta; and respects the intellectually-gifted and highly-motivated students who choose to come to Emory.

All of this occurred contemporaneously with the opening of a new Medical Education Building on the Clifton Corridor. Costing in excess of $60 million, this 162,000 square-foot environmentally "green" structure not only incorporates the historic facades of the school�s original Anatomy and Physiology Buildings, but also contains state-of-the-art classroom, laboratory and study space that serves as a model for 21st Century scientific and medical education.

Information Source (quoted all or in part): Emory Medicine, Summer 2004, “150 Years and Counting” timeline.