page_title: SUNY Downstate Medical Center
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: SUNY Downstate Medical Center / History
caption_attribution_description: English: SUNY Downstate Sesquicentennial logo
context_page_description: SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University is a public medical school and hospital in New York City. It is part of the State University of New York system and the only academic medical center for health education, research, and patient care serving Brooklyn’s 2.5 million residents. As of Fall 2018, it had a total student body of 1,846 and approximately 8,000 faculty and staff.
  Downstate Medical Center comprises a College of Medicine, Colleges of Nursing and Health Related Professions, Schools of Graduate Studies and Public Health, and University Hospital of Brooklyn. It also includes a major research complex and biotechnology facilities.
  SUNY Downstate ranks eighth nationally in the number of alumni who are on the faculty of American medical schools. More physicians practicing in New York City graduated from Downstate than from any other medical school. With 1,040 residents, Downstate's residency program is the 16th largest in the country.
  SUNY Downstate Medical Center is the fourth largest employer in Brooklyn. Eighty-six percent of its employees are New York City residents; 68 percent live in Brooklyn.
context_section_description: In 2010 SUNY Downstate celebrated its sesquicentennial, commemorating the year that the Long Island College Hospital (as it was then known) first opened its doors to students. Yet Downstate traces its roots back even further (to 1856) when a small group of physicians set up a free dispensary in Brooklyn to care for poor immigrants.
  Known as the German General Dispensary, its original aim was to care for indigent Germans living in Brooklyn, but changing demographics soon required it to broaden its outreach.  In 1857 it was reorganized as a charitable institution and renamed The St. John’s Hospital—the first of many name changes.
  Officially chartered by the state in 1858 as the Long Island College Hospital of the City of Brooklyn, it was authorized to operate a hospital and confer medical degrees on candidates who attended two lecture courses and completed a three-year preceptorship under a practicing physician. The notion that care at the hospital bedside should be included as an essential part of medical training was revolutionary for its time, but other medical schools soon adopted the approach and it came to be regarded as essential pedagogy.
  In 1860 the school officially opened its doors to 57 (male) students. It was one of only 11 medical schools to admit African American students. The first faculty included many distinguished physicians, such as Dr. Austin Flint Sr., remembered for his role in introducing the stethoscope into standard medical practice in this country. Dr. Flint delivered the commencement address on July 24, 1860, when the school graduated its first new doctors.
  In the following decades The Long Island College Hospital greatly expanded both its facilities and medical school curriculum. By the time of the First World War, admission was opened to women and postgraduate training had been introduced.  In 1930 the college and hospital were separated from one another so that each would be under its own governing board. The following year, the school was rechartered as the Long Island College of Medicine.
  In 1945, the college purchased a large tract of land that would become the site of the future Downstate Medical Center. The “Downstate” era began on April 5, 1950, with the signing of a merger contract between the State University of New York (SUNY) and the Long Island College of Medicine. The medical center came to be known as Downstate to distinguish it from the SUNY medical center in Syracuse, New York, which is known as “Upstate”.  Several years later the current campus was built in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn.
  In 1954 President Dwight D. Eisenhower laid the cornerstone for the Basic Sciences Building. In the following years, the complex grew rapidly, with the addition of a student center and residence halls, as well as a nurses' residence. In 1966 Governor Nelson Rockefeller officiated at the dedication of University Hospital of Brooklyn (UHB), Downstate’s own teaching hospital. The School of Graduate Studies, the College of Health Related Professions, and the College of Nursing were established that same year. In 1987 Governor Mario Cuomo and Mayor Edward Koch helped break ground for the new Health Science Education Building, where most student classes now take place.
  More recently, the medical center has entered a period of renewed growth and expansion. In addition to the completion of a multimillion-dollar capital improvement program for the hospital and new clinical and research facilities, the campus has expanded to include a Biotechnology Park and Advanced Biotechnology Incubator, and School of Public Health. The School of Public Health was structurally engineered by Leslie E. Robertson Associates, and designed by Ennead Architects.
  The Advanced Biotechnology Incubator, designed for start-up and early-stage biotech companies, includes a commercial synthetic chemistry facility. Construction is underway to develop biotech research and  manufacturing at the Brooklyn Army Terminal.  These initiatives are part of a strategic plan to position SUNY Downstate as the center for biomedical disco
caption: 2010 was SUNY Downstate's sesquicentennial, celebrating 150 years in medical education.  Sesquicentennial Site
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