page_title: Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine / History
caption_attribution_description: Mayo Medical School Building on Second Street SW in Rochester, Minnesota
context_page_description: The Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine, formerly known as Mayo Medical School, is a research-oriented medical school based in Rochester, Minnesota, with additional campuses in Arizona and Florida. MCASOM is a school within the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, the education division of the Mayo Clinic. It grants the Doctor of Medicine degree, accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and the Liaison Committee on Medical Education. In November 2018, the school was renamed in honor of a $200 million donation from businessman Jay Alix.
context_section_description: The Mayo Foundation appointed cardiologist Dr. Raymond Pruitt as the first dean of the Mayo Medical School (now Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine) in 1970, publicly announcing its creation the following year. It officially opened on September 5, 1972, with an inaugural class of 40 students, becoming the 110th medical school in the United States and the 2nd in Minnesota.
  The MCASOM was accredited as a medical school by the LCME in 1972 but the Mayo Foundation did not have regional institutional accreditation for granting degrees. Therefore, the Mayo Foundation began operations of the MCASOM through an affiliation established with the University of Minnesota in 1915 for graduate degree and medical specialty programs. Thus the MCASOM granted its first M.D. degrees in 1976 under the University of Minnesota's North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCA) accreditation. The Mayo Foundation terminated their affiliation with the University of Minnesota in 1983, becoming an independent degree-granting institution accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the NCA the following year.
  A reorganization of the Mayo Foundation in 1989 spun out a new graduate degree-granting school called the Mayo Graduate School, now named the Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (MCGSBS). This facilitated the start of the M.D.-Ph.D. program, which became the Mayo Clinic Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) in 2003 when it was first awarded a T32 grant by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
  The Mayo Clinic historically provided a merit scholarship—the amount of which was based on state of residency—to every matriculating student not receiving extramural full-tuition support. Though MCASOM has since moved to awarding grant aid based primarily on student need, it recently ranked as one of the most affordable private medical schools in the country.
caption: Mitchell Student Center in Rochester, MN
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