History and Facilities

History

The School of Medicine was established by passage of a bill in the Connecticut General Assembly in 1810 granting a charter for “The Medical Institution of Yale College,” to be conducted under the joint supervision of the college and the Connecticut State Medical Society. The institution was formally opened in 1813, and the first degrees were conferred the following year. In 1884, with the approval of the Medical Society, the original charter was amended to place the School definitely in the control of the College as the Medical School of Yale College. The name Yale College was changed to Yale University in 1887, and the name of the Medical School was automatically changed. The present name was adopted in 1918.

Shortly after the establishment of the School, members of its faculty and physicians in the state joined with other citizens in raising funds for a hospital in New Haven to provide, among other services, clinical facilities for the instruction of medical students. The outcome of these efforts was the incorporation of the General Hospital Society of Connecticut in 1826, and the opening of the New Haven Hospital in 1832. The New Haven Dispensary was founded in 1872 and later became a division of the New Haven Hospital. Instruction in clinical medicine has been conducted in the hospital continuously since its establishment.

A merger was effected in 1945 between the New Haven Hospital and Grace Hospital to form the Grace-New Haven Community Hospital. The affiliation agreement between the hospital and University was revised in 1965 and the name of the institution changed to Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH). In 1999, a separate affiliation agreement was adopted by the University and the Yale New Haven Health System.

Members of the professional staffs of the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, West Haven, and the Connecticut Mental Health Center, 34 Park Street, hold appointments in Yale University.

Facilities

Located southwest of the New Haven Green and Yale’s Old Campus, Yale-New Haven Medical Center includes the School of Medicine and School of Public Health, School of Nursing, Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH), Yale Cancer Center, Connecticut Mental Health Center, and the John B. Pierce Laboratory.

The School of Medicine’s Sterling Hall of Medicine, 333 Cedar Street, is the central building. This handsome limestone structure with domed roof includes administrative offices, the 450-seat Mary S. Harkness Auditorium, the Child Study Center, the departments of Cellular and Molecular Physiology, Pharmacology, Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Genetics, Cell Biology, and Neurobiology, and the sections of Comparative Medicine and History of Medicine.

The Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library, also located in Sterling Hall of Medicine, houses over 444,400 volumes, subscribes to more than 2,300 print journals, and offers electronic access to resources to facilitate the use of the international biomedical literature.

Connected to the south end of Sterling Hall is the Jane Ellen Hope Building, a teaching facility of conference rooms and lecture halls. At Sterling’s north end is the Nathan Smith Building, which spans Cedar Street, joining the School of Medicine and YNHH patient-care facilities, including the Hunter Building. The Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital is connected to two other hospital pavilions by a three-story atrium. The Nathan Smith Building contains offices and laboratories of Yale Cancer Center and the department of Genetics. Entrance to the Hope and Nathan Smith buildings is at 333 Cedar Street.

Yale-New Haven Hospital, 20 York Street, is a 944-bed facility with 92 bassinets. The Yale-New Haven Psychiatric Hospital is located nearby at 184 Liberty Street. School of Medicine faculty are attending physicians at YNHH, the School’s primary teaching hospital. All medical and surgical specialties are represented at the hospital, which discharged 50,369 inpatients during the year ending September 30, 2006. During that period, ambulatory services treated 503,656 outpatients and emergency services had 113,921 visits. The hospital also houses the clinical component of Yale Cancer Center, a joint program of YNHH and the School of Medicine. Yale-New Haven has started construction of a new cancer hospital on Park Street, expected to open in late 2009 or early 2010.

The Children’s Hospital provides inpatient and outpatient pediatric services, and also includes a rooftop helipad, high-risk maternity and newborn units, and labor, delivery, and postpartum services.

YNHH is the flagship hospital of the Yale New Haven Health System, an integrated delivery system that includes Bridgeport Hospital, Greenwich Hospital, and their affiliated organizations. Yale New Haven Health, Connecticut’s largest health system, also extends into Rhode Island through its relationship with the Westerly Hospital.

The Laboratory of Epidemiology and Public Health is the School’s other major teaching facility and is home to the medical school’s Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, which also functions as the nationally accredited Yale School of Public Health. The nine-story building at 60 College Street contains classrooms, laboratories, an auditorium, and administrative offices (except the Office of the Dean of Public Health, which moved in 2007 to 135 College Street). It also is the site of a World Health Organization Collaborating Center, focusing on health promotion policy and research. The building at 47 College Street houses the School of Public Health library and various administrative offices.

Laboratories and offices for the School’s clinical departments are located in contiguous buildings across Cedar Street from Sterling Hall. The Anthony N. Brady Memorial Laboratory and Lauder Hall provide offices and laboratories for the departments of Surgery, Pathology, Anesthesiology, and Diagnostic Radiology. The Boardman Building houses the offices for the departments of Surgery and Ophthalmology and Visual Science. Farnam Memorial Building (FMB) and the Laboratory of Surgery, Obstetrics and Gynecology (LSOG) provide facilities for the departments of Pathology, Surgery, Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation, and Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, and for the Section of Comparative Medicine.

The YNHH Clinic Building connects Farnam with the Laboratory for Medicine and Pediatrics (LMP). Adjacent to the Clinic Building are Tompkins Memorial Pavilion (TMP) and Fitkin Memorial Pavilion (FMP), facilities shared by the hospital and the School. They contain the departments of Anesthesiology, Neurosurgery, and Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation; sections of Nephrology and Cardiology; and laboratories and offices for the Department of Pediatrics. On the other side of the Clinic Building are Fitkin Amphitheater, the LMP, and the Lippard Laboratory for Clinical Investigation (LLCI), where research is conducted in the departments of Dermatology, Internal Medicine, Neurology, Pediatrics, and Therapeutic Radiology.

Laboratories of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science and offices of the Department of Psychiatry are located at 300 George Street. Many of the Psychiatry department’s teaching, research, and patient-care activities are conducted at the Connecticut Mental Health Center and the Yale-New Haven Psychiatric Hospital.

The Yale Physicians Building (YPB), a four-story structure on the southwest corner of Howard and Davenport avenues, contains outpatient specialty and consultative services, X-ray, laboratories, and a pharmacy. It also houses academic offices for orthopaedics and rehabilitation, urology, otorhinolaryngology, and plastic surgery. Ophthalmology clinical services and offices moved in 2007 to 40 Temple Street.

The Magnetic Resonance (MR) Center, on the corner of Davenport and Howard avenues, operated by the Department of Diagnostic Radiology, maintains three MR imaging systems for clinical examination. A new Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Center, also operated by the Department of Diagnostic Radiology, maintains a cyclotron radioisotope system for imaging research.

The Boyer Center for Molecular Medicine, at the intersection of Congress Avenue and College Street, houses multidisciplinary programs in molecular genetics, cell biology, and the interdepartmental Program in Cellular Neuroscience, Neurodegeneration, and Repair. It is also the home of the Section of Microbial Pathogenesis.

College Place, a series of buildings at 37–55 College Street, houses the offices of the Dean of Public Health, the Child Study Center, and a number of School of Medicine administrative offices.

The medical school’s newest research building, at 10 Amistad Street, is home to three interdisciplinary groups: the Interdepartmental Program in Vascular Biology and Therapeutics, the Human and Translational Immunology Program, and the Yale Stem Cell Center.

The Anlyan Center for Medical Research and Education is not only the medical school’s largest major state-of-the-art research and educational facility, it is the largest on the entire Yale campus. Completed in November 2002, this outstanding facility is located on the corner of Cedar Street and Congress Avenue and encompasses a full city block. The new building includes six floors of laboratories for disease-based research, core facilities for genomics and magnetic resonance imaging, and state-of-the-art teaching space for anatomy and histology. This facility provides laboratories and offices for the departments of Internal Medicine, Genetics, Immunobiology, and Diagnostic Radiology.

Edward S. Harkness Memorial Hall, 367 Cedar Street, is a student dormitory with the Nicholas P. R. Spinelli student lounge, the Class of 1958 Fitness Center, dining facilities, and the Phyllis Bodel Childcare Center. The School of Medicine offices of admissions, student affairs, financial aid, and international health and student programs are located on the second floor. The offices of education, student research, M.D./Ph.D. Program, and multicultural affairs are located on the third floor.

A number of other spaces in the vicinity of the School are leased rather than owned by Yale University.

The VA Connecticut Healthcare System, West Haven, a major teaching affiliate of the School of Medicine, is the site of the Paralyzed Veterans of America/EPVA Center for Neuroscience and Regeneration Research of Yale University.

Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library

The Cushing/Whitney Medical Library serves the Yale-New Haven Medical Center and the health care needs of Yale University. The library is a comprehensive resource for research, patient care, and education materials. The library’s Web site is the gateway to the virtual library of electronic books and journals, databases, clinical reference tools, and evidence-based practice resources in support of programs in medicine, nursing, public health, and the basic sciences. At present, our Web site lists over 6,000 electronic journals and over 3,500 electronic books, an extensive collection of medical education software, clinical synthesis products, and PDA resources.

The Medical Library is a dynamic and busy place. We are committed to providing students with a supportive place for study and learning, and providing faculty and staff with seamless access to information resources in the library and on the desktop.

The Medical Library has computing clusters in the Information Room and the Computer Resource Laboratory (CRL). The workstations provide access to electronic resources, e-mail, word processing, the Internet, and printing; in addition, the CRL contains a digital imaging center.

All Yale University students have access to electronic resources including electronic books, journals, and databases from any off-campus computer. Wireless access is available throughout the Medical Library. The library also lends laptops and wireless cards to students.

Medical librarians provide reference assistance and in-depth consultation, conduct tours, teach classes, acquire and organize the collection, lend materials, and provide a photocopy and document delivery service. Librarians work to create seamless access to full-text electronic resources. Using YaleLinks, students can go from database to the full article with just a click of a button. We also develop self-help tools such as online tutorials for quick help at the student’s computer. To provide the highest level of service to library users, staff also provide an outreach service to each medical school department. The Library Liaison Program promotes communication between the library and the departments to ensure that the library is meeting the educational and research needs of busy clinicians and researchers.

The Medical Library offers a rich program designed to build competency in information management skills—skills that are increasingly important as a foundation for effective research and practice in health sciences. Our goal for this program is to foster lifelong information management skills by providing medical students a solid foundation throughout their four years of medical school.

During their orientation week, first-year students are introduced to the library, the Personal Librarian Program, and their “personal librarian.” Librarians become personal librarians for approximately twenty students and maintain contact with the same students throughout their four years in medical school. A personal librarian is able to recommend resources best suited for individual research needs, provide instruction in new technologies and resources, and guide students to specific resources as their research and learning needs change.

As the second-year students begin research for their thesis project, the library offers seminars on information management, including the use of bibliographic database management programs. At the end of the second year and just before the clinical years begin, students attend a “Find it Fast” session. This session is designed to prepare students to find the answer to a clinical question efficiently and effectively.

Third- and fourth-year students participate in a variety of seminars, mostly focusing on evidence-based practice and advanced database searching techniques. Fourth-year students attend a series of “out-the-door” seminars as part of the Integrative Clinical Medicine course. These seminars are designed to refresh information management skills and to introduce new applications and technology.

Emerging trends and rapidly changing technology in academic medical curricula provide opportunities for faculty and librarians to work together using the Web and other electronic resources as teaching tools to enhance students’ educational experience at Yale.

The Historical Library contains one of the nation’s best collections of rare medical books, journals, prints, and photographs, as well as current works in the history of medicine. There are 325 medical incunabula, over 75 manuscript volumes from the twelfth through sixteenth century, and one of the best study collections of weights and measures in the world. Its holdings also include Yale medical theses to 1900, catalogues, yearbooks, photographs, and other publications and ephemera related to the Yale School of Medicine.

The Epidemiology and Public Health Library is associated with the Medical Library and contains over 25,000 volumes and 350 current journal subscriptions as well as information in electronic format on biostatistics, epidemiology, health policy and administration, environmental health, and global health.

Nursing library services are provided to Yale School of Nursing (YSN) faculty, students, and staff through the Medical Library. The Medical Library provides YSN with a rich collection of both print and electronic materials. The print collection for the School of Nursing Library is housed in the Medical Library. The Nursing Library Web site gives the YSN community quick electronic access to important biomedical online resources, as well as other library electronic resources.

Sterling Memorial Library, Yale’s main library and the largest library on campus, houses more than four million volumes and serves as the center of the library system. Twenty-two libraries are included in the Yale University Library system, including Kline Science Library, the Law Library, and the Seeley G. Mudd Library, which houses the government documents collection. EliExpress (Yale Library’s document delivery service) couriers transport library books daily among these and the other library units on campus.

Associates of the Yale Medical Library

Martin E. Gordon, M.D., Chair
Toby A. Appel, Secretary
Telephone: 785.4354

The associates were formed in 1948 to assist in augmenting the library’s services and collections. Membership information is available on the associates Web page, www.med.yale.edu/library/associates.

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