# George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences

The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences (abbreviated as GW Medical School, GW Medicine, or SMHS) is the professional medical school of the George Washington University, in Washington, D.C. SMHS is one of the most selective medical schools in the United States based on the number of applicants. It was the eleventh medical school to open in what is now the United States, and is the seventh-oldest medical school in the country that is still operating.

## Rankings

U.S. News & World Report ranks GW Medicine as having the third best physician assistant program, the 29th best physical therapy program, as tied for the 60th best research medical school, and as tied for the 68th best primary care medical school in the United States. The George Washington University Hospital has routinely served the medical needs of presidents of the United States and members of the U.S. Congress.
GW Medicine is regularly one of the most selective medical schools in the U.S. based on the number of applicants and its acceptance rate. GW SMHS experienced a rise in the number of applications, to 14,649 applications in 2012. In 2013 and 2024, it was named the most competitive medical school in the country to get admission to; in 2017 and 2022, it had the fifth-lowest acceptance rate of any medical school in the United States; year-to-year, the exact ranking varies but rarely leaves the top 5. It receives more applications each year than any other allopathic medical school in the country. The school has more than 700 medical students currently enrolled in its Doctor of Medicine (MD) program.

## Academics

The School of Medicine and Health Sciences contains a variety of programs such as the M.D. Program, the Physician Assistant program, and the Physical Therapy program. Multiple Nobel laureates have been affiliated with SMHS, including Ferid Murad, Vincent du Vigneaud, and Julius Axelrod. The school maintains numerous research centers and institutes. Among the most notable are The Dr. Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Cancer Research Center, the GW Heart and Vascular Institute, the McCormick Genomic and Proteomic Center, the W.M. Keck Institute for Proteomics Technology and Applications, The Rodham Institute, Washington Institute of Surgical Endoscopy, the Ronald Reagan Institute of Emergency Medicine, the GW Institute for Neuroscience, the Research Center for Neglected Diseases of Poverty, and the GW HIV/AIDS Institute.
The Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library is the academic library for GW SMHS.

### International Medicine Program

The International MD Program was developed by the Office of International Medicine Programs at GW in response to the great demand for U.S.-educated physicians abroad. Differences in educational/teaching styles, language, and culture may present further obstacles to international students who apply to American programs. The International MD Program is designed to facilitate international students who wish to practice medicine, and to further GW's mission to improve the health and well-being of communities beyond its locale by promoting the exchange of knowledge across cultures.
Residency training for graduates of non-U.S. medical schools and colleges is also provided by GW SMHS.

### Other programs

Other programs include clinical laboratory sciences and administration training. In addition to numerous bachelor, certificate, and masters programs, the school also offers advanced training through a nurse practitioner/doctor of nursing practice program, a physician assistant program, doctor of physical therapy program, and a PhD in translational sciences program. The school offers many Early Selection options through participating universities, as well as a seven-year accelerated program.

### Admissions

Admission to the School of Medicine and Health Sciences is the most competitive of the George Washington University's graduate programs. For the 2022-2023 application cycle which matriculated its class of 2026 in the fall of 2022, about 181 accepted students matriculated out of a competitive pool of 15,216 applicants who all applied to The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences M.D. Program. Of the 15,216 applicants, only about 800 were interviewed, and just over 300 students were accepted with 181 matriculating.
The George Washington University School of Medicine has an acceptance rate of 1.09% for students matriculating to School of Medicine in the Class of 2026. In the 2021-2022 application season, George Washington University was the 4th most applied to medical school in the country and ranked as the 7th most selective medical school in the United States based on the number of applicants. It was the most applied-to U.S. medical school in the 2023-2024 application season.
The School of Medicine had the lowest admissions rate in the United States in 2016 and 2013, based on the number of applicants (1.1 percent during 2016 admission cycle) according to U.S. News & World Report. For the MD class entering in 2019, a little more than 1,000 applicants were interviewed out of a total number of 12,057 applicants. Approximately 300 individuals were accepted, with 184 enrolling. Students had an average GPA of 3.71, and a mean MCAT score of 512.8. Among the 46 medical schools with the highest MCAT scores, the typical student had an average score of 517, while the average MCAT for matriculants of all medical schools was 511.5.
Four out of every ten MD students holds an undergraduate degrees in the arts, humanities, or social sciences. A unique aspect of the school is the Practice of Medicine (POM) course that spans the entire length of a medical student's education. GW was one of the first in the country to place students in clinical settings from the start of their medical school experience.
The student body of each new admitted class expanded significantly from about 182 students to 210 in Fall 2024, with 30 students in the Class of 2028 admitted specifically to do their clinical rotations at the school's new regional medical campus at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore. 3rd-year GW medical students transferring from the Washington, DC area to do all of their core clinical rotations at Sinai Hospital first began in Fall 2023.

## Research

GW SMHS is home to many research centers and institutes. Among them are the Dr. Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Cancer Research Center, the GW Cancer Center, the Rodham Institute, the Institute for Biomedical Sciences, and the GW Institute for Neuroscience.

### The Health Sciences Research Commons

Health Sciences Research Commons (HSRC) is an online repository for GWU School of Medicine and Health Sciences staff and faculty research articles and other publications.

## Affiliations
### Children's National Medical Center

The Department of Pediatrics within SMHS is housed at Children's National Medical Center. In addition, the SMHS and Children's National partner on a variety of projects and initiatives.

### Medical Faculty Associates

The school has a partnership with the George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates who have over 800 physicians on staff that provide teaching and professional services to the community. The staff of GW MFA are also academic clinical faculty of the SMHS.

## Controversy

In 2008, the LCME or Liaison Committee on Medical Education put the George Washington University Medical School on accreditation probation, citing a number of issues. While declining to publish the entire list, among the problems acknowledged by GW were its outdated system of managing its curriculum, the curriculum itself, high levels of student debt, student mistreatment, and inadequate study and lounge space for its students. Significantly, in 2008, GWU was the only medical school (among 129 LCME accredited institutions) to be placed on probation and the first such in fifteen years.
GW implemented a plan to rectify these problems. Its probationary status was lifted in February 2010. Subsequently, the two top GWU medical school administrators were forced to resign over the alleged conflicts of interest.

## Notable people

* Notable Alumni of the GW School of Medicine & Health Sciences
* Julius Axelrod, winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
* Kenneth P. Moritsugu, U.S. Surgeon General
* Jeffrey Lieberman, president of the American Psychiatric Association
* Vincent T. DeVita, president of the board of directors of the American Cancer Society
* Neal D. Barnard, founder of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
* Soh Jaipil, leader of the Korean independence movement
* James I. Ausman, editor-in-chief of Surgical Neurology International
* Donna Christian-Christensen, Resident Commissioner of the U.S. Virgin Islands
* Francis L. Delmonico, member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences
* Neal Dunn, U.S. Congressman from Florida

### Notable alumni

* Julius Axelrod (PhD '55 and LLD '71, 1970 Nobel laureate in Physiology and Medicine and Research Neuroscientist at National Institute of Health)
* Neal D. Barnard (Physician, author, clinical researcher, and founding president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine)
* Neal Dunn
* A.Y.P. Garnett (Physician who served Jefferson Davis, the leader of the Confederacy, during the Civil War years)
* Soh Jaipil, MD, 1892, anglicized name 'Philip Jaisohn', exiled from Korea for leading civil rights and suffrage movements, became the first Korean to become a naturalized citizen of the United States and the first Korean to attain an American medical degree. He also founded the first Korean newspaper Tongnip Sinmun. The statue of Soh Jaipil is located near the medical school campus in front of the Korean Embassy.
* Albert Freeman Africanus King (MD, 1861, attended GW when it was called the Columbian Medical College - he was the physician who tended to Abraham Lincoln after he was shot by John Wilkes Booth. In addition, King was one of the earliest to suggest the connection between mosquitos and malaria.)
* Jeffrey Lieberman (MD 1975), president, American Psychiatric Association; chief of psychiatry, Columbia University
* Floyd D. Loop (chairman and CEO of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation)
* William P. Magee (co-founder of Operation Smile)
* Kenneth P. Moritsugu (deputy surgeon general and surgeon general of the United States)
* Robert King Stone (physician who served US president Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War)
* James I. Ausman chair of the (neurosurgeon and editor-in-chief of Surgical Neurology International.
* C. Harmon Brown (endocrinologist and pioneer in sports medicine)
* Paul Carlson (American medical missionary)
* Donna Christian-Christensen (U.S. Congressional delegate from the U.S. Virgin Islands from 1997 to 2015)
* Francis L. Delmonico (surgeon, professor at Harvard Medical School, and expert in transplantation)
* Vincent T. DeVita (oncologist)
* Thomas Grogan (chief scientific officer at Ventana)
* Albert W. Kenner (major general in the US Army, chief medical officer of Operation Torch and Operation Overlord)
* Nehal N. Mehta (cardiologist and scientist at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute)
* Charles Mullins (Pediatric Cardiologist)
* Gail Rosseau (close associate of President Obama, short list for Surgeon General Nomination)
* Douglas Scherr (First physician at Cornell to perform a robotic prostatectomy and robotic cystectomy)
* Albert Vander Veer (Credited with performing the first thyroidectomy)
* Charles Henry Tyler Townsend (Chief Entomologist of the state of São Paulo, Brazil
* Gary Wand (endocrinologist, professor and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine laboratory director)
* Lt. Gen. Nadja West (Surgeon General of the United States Army)
* Howard Zucker (Commissioner of Health of New York State and former assistant director-general of the World Health Organization)
* Elad Levy (professor and chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at University at Buffalo)
* William Whitney Christmas (aviation pioneer and accused con man)

### Notable faculty

* Rachel Brem (diagnostic radiologist, develops new technologies for diagnosis of breast cancer)
* James Carroll (identified germs as the cause of diseases and changed the course of medicine, worked with Dr. Theobald Smith)
* Peter Hotez (distinguished research professor and professor of microbiology, immunology, and tropical medicine at The George Washington University School of Medicine, and principal scientist and founding director of the Human Hookworm Vaccine Initiative)
* Albert Freeman Africanus King (famous for Manual of Obstetrics that became the national standard)
* Ferid Murad {discovered the role of nitric oxide in the cardiovascular system, winner of 1998 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology}
* Walter Reed (army major who identified that yellow fever was transmitted by mosquitoes rather than direct contact with an infected patient)
* Frederick Russell (introduced typhoid vaccine into the army)
* Thomas Sewall (professor of anatomy)
* Theobald Smith (Identified germs as the cause of diseases and changed the course of medicine, worked with Dr. James Carroll)
* Vincent du Vigneaud (1955 Nobel laureate in Chemistry, head of the Biochemistry Department at the George Washington University School of Medicine)
* Judith L. Rapoport (expert on childhood onset schizophrenia, child psychiatry, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and obsessive compulsive disorder)
* Lillian Comas-Díaz (clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and specializes in ethnocultural approaches to therapy)