Email this pageOur History
Over 80 years ago, some of the most progressive minds in Rochester and in the nation united to change the course of medicine. Their words are etched in the past, but they also echo and live today as we plan for the future.
Well-known educator Abraham Flexner had investigated medical schools throughout North America and issued a scathing critique. His report, Medical Education in the United States and Canada, stated that four out of five medical schools were so inadequate they should simply be closed.
Flexner’s ideas were revolutionary yet simple: Medical schools should be affiliated with universities and have a dedicated, structured faculty of physicians and scientists. When he looked to establish a medical school in New York that would be based on his philosophy, he turned to the University of Rochester.
Flexner told University President Rush Rhees that Rochester was an ideal place for "a medical school of the highest order." Rhees responded that he would support a medical school only if he had the resources to make it "unquestionably of the first class."
Rhees and Flexner approached George Eastman, philanthropist and founder of the Eastman Kodak Co. At a momentous meeting with Rhees and Flexner in February 1920, Eastman saw the opportunity to do something great.
With the backing of Eastman and John D. Rockefeller, Rochester had the unusual opportunity to build a medical center that would incorporate scientific inquiry, learning, and patient care all under one roof. The facility itself would support the powerful interaction of all three missions, making each one better as a result.
Their foresight gave birth to the philosophy and practice of collaboration that today remains a fundamental characteristic—a kind of genetic fingerprint—of the University of Rochester Medical Center.
Read more of the History of the University of Rochester Medical Center »
