The story
Indiana University (IU) established a department of medicine at Bloomington in 1903, but the school in Indianapolis traces its founding to 1908, following the resolution of a rivalry with Purdue University over which institution had the legal authority to establish a medical school in Marion County. A year after the IU- and Purdue-affiliated schools in Indianapolis were consolidated in 1908, the Indiana General Assembly authorized IU to operate a medical school in Marion County.
Founding in Bloomington
In March 1903, William Lowe Bryan, the tenth president of IU, proposed the formation of a department of medicine at IU Bloomington to the university trustees. The new department was approved and established in May of the same year. The IU School of Medicine was admitted as a member of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) in 1904.
In addition to IUSM in Bloomington, IU's leaders wanted to locate medical training facilities in Indianapolis. Their initial plan was to provide medical students with the first two years of coursework at Bloomington and the final two years at Indianapolis, where students would receive clinically based training as part of their studies. Prior to 1908, due primarily to the high cost of establishing its own medical facilities in Indianapolis, IU attempted to merge with existing medical schools, but the effort was unsuccessful.
Earlier schools
The current school in Indianapolis is a mixture of many earlier medical colleges. The 19th and early 20th centuries saw many short-lived medical schools established in Indiana, mostly in Indianapolis, with the majority lasting less than a decade. This is mostly attributable to financial reasons and because most of medical education at this time was taught through an apprenticeship system and through private, for-profit schools. University-based schools with access to state funding and endowments became the standard model for medical education later on in the 1890s, with Johns Hopkins University leading the way.
The first Indiana school was established in 1833 as the Christian College at New Albany. It was largely regarded as a fraudulent diploma mill, and offered courses, but not degrees, in medicine. It closed the same year. The first public medical school, Vincennes University's department of medicine, was short lived as well, only lasting 1837–1838. Many other schools of varying quality and regard would open and close throughout the next 70 years.
The first successful school was the private LaPorte University School of Medicine (LPSM) founded in 1841. The first proprietary school was the Indiana Central Medical College (ICMC) founded in Indianapolis in 1849; it served as the medical department of Indiana Asbury University, today known as DePauw University. John Stough Bobbs, a pioneer local physician, served as the ICMC's dean. LPSM was renamed to the Indiana Medical College in 1846 and would ultimately merge into the ICMC in 1851; the ICMC would itself close in 1852.
In 1869, another school, also named the Indiana Medical College (IMC), was launched by Bobbs and colleagues as an outgrowth of the Indianapolis Academy of Medicine. Initial classes were held in the Old Indiana Statehouse; as the building was actively falling apart around this time, classes were soon moved to a building at the northwest corner of Delaware and Court streets. Clinical classes were taught at the Indianapolis City Hospital and various other hospitals and clinics around the city. The IMC would associate with IU in 1871; though the partnership ended in 1876 when IU failed to receive state funding for medical instruction. The Doctor of Medicine program at the IMC was not particularly rigorous, and one could graduate after only five months of study. However, graduates still required years of apprenticeship post-graduation, equivalent to a modern-day medical residency.
Samuel A. Elbert, the first African American to receive a medical degree in Indiana, graduated from the IMC in 1871 following a dispute with the college.
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In 1874, the College of Physicians and Surgeons opened in Indianapolis as a breakaway school from the Indiana Medical College following a dispute over admissions policies; the schools reunited as the Medical College of Indiana (MCI) and associated with Butler University in 1878. The MCI's building was located at the northeast corner of South Pennsylvania and East Maryland streets; it was destroyed by a fire in 1894. Following a bequest by physician William Lomax (a graduate of LPSM), a new medical education building named in Lomax's honor was constructed in 1895 at 212 North Senate Ave. It was razed in 1960 for the construction of the Indiana Government Center North, surviving both extensive water damage in 1916 and fire damage in 1919.
Two more medical schools opened in 1879: the Indianapolis-based Central College of Physicians and Surgeons (CCPS) and the Fort Wayne College of Medicine (FWCM). The CCPS was founded by dissidents from the MCI unhappy with the association with Butler, and moved into a building at 214 North Senate Avenue, just up the road from the MCI. The FWCM briefly associated with Taylor University from 1890 to 1893.
In 1896, the MCI, Butler, and the Indiana Law School formed a loose collection of colleges named the University of Indianapolis (U of I), not related to the modern university of the same name. The Indiana Dental College joined U of I in 1904. Plans existed to create a central campus and expand the number of component colleges but they never materialized, and thus U of I remained an amorphous entity. Its component colleges gradually joined with IU over time with the exception of Butler, which remains independent to this day.
After IUSM was founded in 1903, formal negotiations opened between IU and the MCI for the MCI to leave U of I and join with IU; however, due to fundamental disagreements on where the resulting school of medicine would be located (the MCI wished it to remain in Indianapolis while IU wanted to move it to Bloomington), the proposal was not ratified, and by 1904 the matter was indefinitely abandoned.
Rivalry with Purdue University
While negotiations were ongoing between IU and the Medical College of Indiana, representatives from the Central College of Physicians and Surgeons approached Purdue University's medical department in West Lafayette, which had been established sometime prior to 1895, to arrange a similar union. The Purdue trustees declined the offer, not wanting to interfere with the concurrent negotiations between IU and the MCI. In May 1905, the MCI submitted the same proposal ("...to give its property and assets of an appraised value of $100,000 to the University, and to accompany the gift by its good will and the gratuitous services of its faculty; the motive being to permanently establish a medical college of high order in connection with an educational institution of good standing.") that had failed ratification with IU to Purdue's trustees. The trustees took the proposal into consideration, and were "convinced that the conditions were unusually favorable to the consummation of a union of interests where all previous efforts had failed, and to the inauguration of a progressive educational movement of great value to the State". By September the proposal was accepted subject to the approval of the state legislature, and the MCI became part of Purdue University with the full title of "the Indiana Medical College, the School of Medicine of Purdue University".
On September 25, 1905, the trustees of the CCPS voted to suspend operations and to transfer the students, alumni, personal property, and funds of the college to the Purdue School of Medicine. Later on October 2, the Fort Wayne College of Medicine voted to likewise merge with the Purdue School of Medicine and transfer personnel and equipment to Indianapolis. The Purdue School of Medicine operated out of the former MCI's facilities (the Lomax Building) at 212 North Senate Avenue in Indianapolis (the northwest corner of Market Street), in the immediate vicinity of the Indiana Statehouse. The building that housed the CCPS was sold. In May 1906, 122 students received medical degrees from Purdue University and successfully passed the examination of the State Board of Medical Registration. In the spring of 1907, Purdue graduated 68 men and four women; in that class was Arett C. Arnett, a physician who helped establish a Lafayette clinic in 1922 later known as Arnett Clinic and today known as Indiana University Health Arnett Hospital.
In 1906, the faculty of the Purdue School of Medicine published a resolution in the Indiana Medical Journal and the daily press stating that all graduates of the Medical College of Indiana, the Central College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the Fort Wayne College of Medicine were entitled to the degree of Doctor of Medicine and such diploma from Purdue University; that graduates of the former schools could receive these items upon application to Purdue; and the alumni records of the three former schools would thereafter be kept as the records of the Indiana Medical College, the School of Medicine of Purdue University. Immediately thereafter on April 3, 1906, alumni of the former CCPS passed a resolution rejecting the Indiana Medical College as their alma mater, and expressed support that "the only logical place for a State Medical Department" was with Indiana University.
The founding of the Purdue-controlled consolidated medical school in 1905 triggered a debate over which state university, IU or Purdue, had the legal authority to establish a state-supported, four-year medical school in Indianapolis. IU believed that under the legislative act that elevated Indiana College to a university on February 15, 1838, it had the sole authorization to provide state-supported instruction in medicine; but, the development of a medical school had been delayed due to a lack of sufficient funding. A legal opinion published by a W. H. H. Miller on October 31, 1905, stated that the university did not have clear authority to conduct a medical program outside Monroe County, as that legislative act only mentioned medical education "on the grounds of the university". The rivalry was so intense that it is sometimes labeled as the instigating factor for the cancellation of athletic events between the universities from 1906 to 1908; however, newspapers from the time cite a fight that occurred at a baseball game in West Lafayette on May 31, 1906, as the cause.
The building that was sold and had housed the former CCPS would eventually come under the ownership of IU supporters, who would establish a separate medical school, the State College of Physicians and Surgeons (SCPS), there in 1906. Clinical faculty were recruited from those unhappy with the arrangement with Purdue. This school offered clinical instructions to IU Bloomington's third- and fourth-year medical students. The SCPS enrolled 109 students in September 1906. In August 1907, the IU board of trustees agreed to a merger of the IU School of Medicine in Bloomington with the SCPS in Indianapolis but agreed to take financial responsibility only for the school's facilities in Monroe County. The first two years of training continued at Bloomington and the final two years of clinical training were held at the SCPS in Indianapolis, with a Doctor of Medicine degree conferred by Indiana University.
Incorporation of Purdue's school and move to Indianapolis
To resolve their ongoing dispute, the leaders of IU and Purdue, along with each of their supporters, sought approval from the Indiana General Assembly to operate their own schools of medicine in Marion County, with the 1907 legislative session hearing proposals from both IU and Purdue to operate separate schools. Divided over competing loyalties to IU or Purdue (the state's largest public schools and historic rivals), legislators debated for months, with neither bill being passed. Eventually, Purdue's president, Winthrop E. Stone, relented and was hailed as a peacemaker, stating that Purdue should leave medical education to IU since it was not central to Purdue's mission as an agricultural and mechanical university and because the problem was so disruptive. In April 1908, IU and Purdue reached an agreement that incorporated the SCPS and the Purdue School of Medicine into the school of medicine in Bloomington and retained the name Indiana University School of Medicine. The agreement additionally stipulated that the school be governed by a board of directors consisting of representatives from IU, Purdue, and the Indiana State Medical Association. This shared governance came to an end on February 26, 1909, when the state legislature formally authorized IU to operate a medical school in Marion County and clearly mandated that IU assume total responsibility for the state's public medical school. The state legislature's authorization enabled IU's medical students to complete years two through four of their medical education in Indianapolis or remain in Bloomington for their first two years before transferring. Students still had to complete at least one year in Bloomington.
Following Indiana University's near-total consolidation of medical education in the state, only two proprietary schools remained, both of which would close in the following years (the Eclectic Medical College of Indiana, 1900–1908; and the Physiomedical College of Indiana, 1873–1909, which was held in high regard among contemporaries at the time). The final independent medical institution was the Valparaiso University School of Medicine (VUSM), founded in 1902 after VU's purchase of the Chicago-based American College of Medicine and Surgery, itself founded in 1901 as the Chicago Eclectic Medical College. Renamed as the Chicago College of Medicine & Surgery (CCM&S) in 1907, the CCM&S functioned as VUSM's physical facilities, clinical sites, and laboratories. In a similar arrangement to IUSM's Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses, VUSM allowed students to complete their preclinical studies in Valparaiso before transferring to the CCM&S in Chicago. After VU declared bankruptcy in 1917, the CCM&S was sold to Loyola University Chicago and would go on to become the Stritch School of Medicine. Thus, IUSM was left as the last school remaining after a tumultuous century of competition for medical education in Indiana.
Early leadership and enrollment
Dr. Allison Maxwell, who headed one of the former proprietary schools, agreed to serve as the first dean of the four-year IU School of Medicine in Indianapolis in April 1908; he remained as its dean until 1911. Maxwell led the fledgling school through a difficult time when financial budgets were an issue and the consolidation of IU's and Purdue's medical school faculties in Indianapolis and Bloomington was completed. The combined faculty would support the four-year medical school at Indianapolis and maintain the two-year, pre-clinical coursework at Bloomington. This arrangement continued until 1911, when only the first year of preclinical coursework would be taught in Bloomington. In addition to Maxwell, other leaders in IUSM's early history were drawn from Johns Hopkins University, including Charles P. Emerson, who was appointed as the second dean of IUSM in 1911 and served in that role until 1931.
Willis Dew Gatch became the third dean of the medical school in 1932. In 1909, Gatch invented the Gatch adjustable hospital bed, which used a crank to raise and lower the patient's head and feet. John D. VanNuys, a 1936 graduate of IUSM, became its fourth dean in 1947. Amelia R. Keller, department of pediatrics, was the sole woman on the clinical faculty of the IU Medical School in Indianapolis after the school's consolidation with the Purdue School of Medicine in 1908.
IUSM graduated its first class of twenty-seven students and conferred its first Doctor of Medicine degree in May 1907. The first graduation of the consolidated IU and Purdue schools of medicine took place the following year. IUSM's first black student, Clarence Lucas, graduated in 1908; the first woman graduate of the newly consolidated school, Lillian Mueller, did so in 1909.
The Flexner Report
Abraham Flexner, a renowned American educator whose work helped reform many medical schools, visited IUSM in November 1909. He noted in his later Flexner Report (1910): "The situation in the state [was], thanks to the intelligent attitude of the university, distinctly hopeful, though it will take time to work it fully."
Flexner also made a recommendation for the progress of the school: "In order to make the school attractive to highly qualified students, it will be necessary (1) to employ full-time men in the work of the first two years, (2) to strengthen the laboratory equipment, (3) greatly improve the organization and conduct of the clinical courses." The IU School of Medicine was one of few medical schools in the nation at the time to receive a positive evaluation from Flexner, primarily because of its strong emphasis on college preparatory coursework in the sciences prior to enrolling in medical school and its additional training in the basic sciences as part of its medical school curriculum.
Early and current facilities
In its early years in Indianapolis, IUSM utilized the SCPS facilities (themselves the former CCPS facilities), erected in 1902 and located at the corner of Market Street and Senate Avenue. After the consolidation of IUSM with the SCPS and the Purdue School of Medicine in 1908, the medical school used the former Purdue School of Medicine facilities (which were the former MCI's facilities) for about ten years while it secured financing to construct new medical school buildings. Several of the medical school's early buildings in Indianapolis were erected in the 1910s and 1920s on property that would eventually become the site of the IU Medical Center on the present-day IU Indianapolis campus.
In February 1912, IU acquired property on West Michigan Street, near the Indianapolis City Hospital (the modern-day Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital), to erect the Robert W. Long Hospital. Construction on the new teaching hospital began in 1912. Although its cornerstone was laid on November 1, 1912, the Great Flood of 1913 delayed the building's opening until 1914. Long Hospital was dedicated on June 15, 1914, and admitted its first patients the following day. Also planned with the opening of Long Hospital was the creation of the IU Training School for Nurses. Originally a part of IUSM, it became its own school (the IU School of Nursing) in 1956. Emerson Hall, another early medical school building, was constructed about 200 feet (61 m) northeast of Long Hospital and completed in the fall of 1919 at a cost of $257,699. Long Hospital was considered for demolition in the 1950s and was ultimately replaced by University Hospital in 1970; the building remains in service to IU Health and IUSM as Long Hall.
The cornerstone of the Riley Hospital for Children was laid on October 7, 1923, and dedicated on October 7, 1924. The hospital, named in honor of Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley, was erected north of Long Hospital. The James Whitcomb Riley Association (now known as the Riley Children's Foundation) hoped to raise an initial $250,000 in funding to add to the state's appropriation. By 1923 it had received $911,518 in pledges from more than 30,000 citizens, including $45,000 in donations from a mass fundraising event. Significant additions to the hospital were built over the years, including three in the 1930s: a Kiwanis Unit, dedicated in 1930; a Rotary Unit, dedicated in 1931; and a hydrotherapy pool in 1935.
From Wikipedia’s article on Indiana University School of Medicine, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5