Clinical rotations by medical students and residents occur within theDuke University Health System, a fully integrated academic health care system encompassing a tertiary-care hospital and specialty clinics on the Medical Center campus, two community hospitals, a VA hospital, home health and hospice services, a network of primary care physicians, and other affiliated partners across the SE United States.
The idea of establishing a medical school at the current site dates back as far as 1891, when John Franklin Crowell, the president of Trinity College as it was known at the time, first announced a public plan to establish a school of medicine.[3]
In 1924,James B. Duke established theDuke Endowment and directed $40 million to Trinity College to become Duke University.[4] The following year, he made an additional request to establish the Duke School of Medicine, Duke School of Nursing, and Duke Hospital, with the goal of improving health care in the Carolinas and nationwide.[5] Three thousand applicants applied to the new medical school in 1929 and 70 first- and third-year students were selected, including four women, for the School's inaugural class. Just four years after its establishment, Duke was ranked among the top 20 medical schools in the country by theAAMC.[5]
Timeline of select research and patient care milestones
1937—Barnes Woodall establishes the nation's first brain tumor program.[6]
1984—Bart Haynes contributes to the identification of HTLV-III, now known asHIV.
1990—Joanne Kurtzberg establishes the Duke Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant Program.
1994—Louise Markert demonstrates that babies born with no immune system, a fatal condition known as completeDiGeorge syndrome, can be cured with thymus transplantation.[10]
1995—Duke scientists link theBRCA1 andBRCA2 genes to breast and ovarian cancers.
2001—Miguel Nicolelis develops a system that allows monkeys to control robot arms via brain signals, an important step to enable paralyzed people to controlneuroprosthetic limbs.
2011—Hai Yan leads a team of scientists from Duke andJohns Hopkins universities to identify mutations in a gene that makes cells immortal and appear to play a pivotal role in three of the most common types of brain tumors, as well as cancers of the liver, tongue and urinary tract.[12]
2013—Duke researcher Jeffery Lawson andLaura Niklason ofYale School of Medicine, develop a bioengineered blood vessel, which Lawson grafted into an artery in a Duke patient’s arm, the first in-human procedure of its kind in the United States.
2015—Clinical trials usingPVS-RIPO, a modified polio virus, to activate the host immune system to fight glioblastomas was featured on 60 Minutes.[13] Preliminary findings have reported limited efficacy.
Duke University School of Medicine is recognised as one of the best medical schools in the United States and the world. It is currently ranked #3 in the country, according toU.S. News & World Report's rankings for best research medical schools in 2022.[15] Several Duke programs are ranked as some of the highest in the country. Top-ten nationally ranked programs for 2022 includesurgery (ranked #2),anesthesia (ranked #4),internal medicine (ranked #5),radiology (ranked #6),pediatrics (ranked #7),obstetrics/gynecology (ranked #8), andpsychiatry (ranked #10).[16] Historically, the Duke University School of Medicine consistently ranks in the top ten medical schools in the United States.[17]
Admission to the school's medical degree program is highly competitive, with more than 7,500 applicants for approximately 115 openings each year.[18] The school ranks very highly among its peers in the diversity of its medical students. Among the draws of the program is its unique curriculum, which gives students contact with patients a year earlier than at most other medical schools and includes an entire year devoted to independent research. Many students use the year to begin studies toward a second degree; nearly one-quarter earn a PhD, Master of Science in Global Health (MScGH), MBA, JD, or master's degree in addition to an MD. About 19.5 percent are enrolled in Duke's Medical Scientist Training Program, which leads to both anMD and aPhD in health-related basic biomedical or social science research. Created to train highly qualified students as physician-scientists, the Duke program is the fourth oldest in the country, has been continuously funded by the NIH for almost 50 years, and is highly regarded nationally.
Duke University School of Medicine also includes PhD programs in the basic sciences and education and training programs in other health professions, including the top-ranked Physician Assistant[19] and Doctor of Physical Therapy programs, a Primary Care Leadership Track,[20] Master of Biomedical Sciences, MS and PhD in Biostatistics, and Master of Management in Clinical Informatics.[21][22]
Collaboration with the National University of Singapore
Duke opened a medical school collaboration with theNational University of Singapore. TheDuke-NUS Graduate Medical School graduated their first class in 2011.[23] The curriculum is similar in structure though the Duke-NUS campus focuses heavily on their team-based learning method called TeamLEAD (Learn, Engage, Apply, Develop).[24]
Duke Clinical Research InstituteDuke Hospital South
TheDuke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI) performs all aspects of clinical research ranging from: Phase I through Phase IVclinical trials;outcomes research; registries of more than 100,000 patients; clinical research networks such as thePediatric Trials Network; and economic and quality of life studies in populations spanning more than 20 therapeutic areas.[25][26] It is home to the Duke Databank for Cardiovascular Diseases, the largest and oldest institutional cardiovascular database in the world, which continues to inform clinical decision-making 40 years after its founding.[27]
TheDuke Global Health Institute (DGHI).
TheTrent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, and History of Medicine, the Center for Chemical Biology, and the Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy.
Abigail Johnston, Olympic silver medalist in diving, competed in the 2012 games as a Duke undergraduate and the 2016 games while a Duke medical student
David Sabiston, Chairman of Surgery, author of a widely used textbook of surgery,[31] performed a seminal procedure that paved the way for modern coronary-bypass surgery, grafting a vein from a patient's leg to bypass a blocked coronary artery during open-heart surgery. Legendary surgical educator
James Wyngaarden, Chairman of Internal Medicine, long-time editor ofCecil's Textbook of Medicine and alsoThe Metabolic Basis of Inherited Disease, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), cofounder ofHuman Genome Project
Eugene Stead, Chairman of Internal Medicine. His work paved way for development ofcardiac catheterization, and he oversaw development of nation's first Physician's Assistant (PA) program
Peter B. Cotton, Professor of Medicine. British gastroenterologist best known for his advancement in digestive disease, pioneering and naming theERCP procedure.
Nancy C. Andrews, pioneer in iron homeostasis and dean of Duke University School of Medicine
