McGill University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences

The Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences is one of the constituent faculties of McGill University. It was established in 1829 after the Montreal Medical Institution was incorporated into McGill College as the college's first faculty; it was the first medical faculty to be established in Canada.[1] The Faculty awarded McGill's first degree, and Canada's first medical degree to William Leslie Logie in 1833.[2]

McGill University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences
Faculté de médecine et des sciences de la santé de l'Université McGill (French)
TypePublic
Established1829; 195 years ago (1829)
DeanLesley Fellows
Students688 MDCM, 35 MD-PhD, 10 MD-MBA
Location, ,
CampusUrban
LanguageEnglish
Websitehttps://www.mcgill.ca/medhealthsci/

There have been at least two Nobel Prize laureates who have completed their entire education at McGill University including MD at the McGill University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences including Andrew Schally (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1977) and David H. Hubel (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1981).

History edit

 
McGill's medical building 1872–1906

The Montreal Medical Institution was established in 1823 by four physicians, Andrew Fernando Holmes, John Stephenson, William Caldwell and William Robertson, all of whom had been trained at the University of Edinburgh Medical School, and were involved in the foundation of the Montreal General Hospital.[3] In 1829 it was incorporated into McGill College as the new College's first faculty; it thus became the first Faculty of Medicine in Canada. A highly didactic approach to medical education called the "Edinburgh curriculum", which consisted of two six-month courses of basic science lectures and two years of "walking the wards" at The Montreal General Hospital, was instituted. From 1833 to 1877 the Faculty followed the pattern set by the University of Edinburgh and required graduating students to submit an 'inaugural dissertation' – a database of these is available.[4]

Sir William Dawson, the principal of McGill, was instrumental in garnering resources for the faculty and pioneering contributions from Thomas Roddick, Francis Shepherd, George Ross and Sir William Osler helped to transform the Victorian era medical school into a leader in modern medical education. Osler graduated from the MDCM program at McGill University Faculty of Medicine in 1872, and co-founded the present-day Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1893.

In 1905, the Bishop's University Medical Faculty Montreal who established in Montreal in 1871 closed and amalgamated with McGill University to create the new McGill University Faculty of Medicine, where BU graduates such as Maude Abbott, one of the Canada's earliest female medical graduates transferred to work for McGill as the Curator of the McGill Medical Museum.

The McGill University Health Centre was part of a $2.355 billion Redevelopment Project on three sites – the Glen, the Montreal General and Lachine hospitals.[5] A new $1.300 billion MUHC Glen site fully integrated super-hospital complex opened in 2015.[6]

A new satellite campus for McGill Medicine for a French stream MD, CM program was established in 2020 for the Outaouais region with a graduating class size of 24 and total of 96 in the program. The establishment of the program is part of a $32.5-million construction project of the Groupe de médecine familiale universitaire (GMF-U) de Gatineau.[7]

In September 2020, the Faculty of Medicine changed its name to the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences to reflect the growth of interprofessionalism and the diversity in the Faculty of Medicine.[8]

 
McIntyre Medical Building in the heart of McGill's downtown campus

Education edit

The faculty offers a four-year MDCM degree in medicine and surgery. The Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences also offers joint degree programs with other disciplines including business (M.D.-M.B.A.) and science/engineering (M.D.-Ph.D.). There is also an accelerated program for selected graduates of the Quebec college system (PRE-MED-ADM or MED-P) that combines one year of science curriculum with the four-year M.D., C.M. degrees.

It is closely affiliated with the McGill University Faculty of Dentistry. Students of dentistry receive instruction together with their medical student colleagues for the first 18 months of their professional training.[9]

The faculty includes six schools: the School of Medicine, the Ingram School of Nursing, the School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, the School of Population & Global Health and the School of Biomedical Sciences. It also includes several research centres involved in studies on, for example, pain, neuroscience, and aging. Most of the non-clinical parts of the faculty are housed in the McIntyre Medical Sciences Building ("The Beer Can", “McMed”), situated on McGill's downtown campus on the south side of Mount Royal between Avenue des Pins and Avenue Docteur-Penfield.[10]

The McGill University Faculty of Medicine was the first medical school in Canada to institute a joint MD-MBA program in 1997 in collaboration with the Desautels Faculty of Management.[11] This program allowed students to complete both degrees in five years.[11]

Affiliations edit

 
McGill University Health Centre's super hospital complex at the Glen Site opened in 2015

McGill University Health Centre edit


McGill affiliate hospitals edit

Reputation edit

McGill's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences has a national and international reputation with a list of faculty and alumni, many of whom were pioneers in their respective fields. It is also ranked as the number 1 medical school nationally in Canada by Maclean's for 19 straight years (including the most recent ranking for 2024).[13] McGill's Medical School has also consistently ranked in the top medical schools worldwide and ranked 21st worldwide on a recent QS World University Ranking of top medical schools world-wide.[14] Particularly, among McGill University's renowned reputation of Rhodes Scholars, McGill's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences has also produced a number of Rhodes Scholars (Cecil James Falconer Parsons, Munroe Bourne, Douglas George Cameron, Alan G. Kendall, Robert Murray Mundle, John Doehu Stubbs, Geoffrey E. Dougherty, Brian James Ward, Lesley Fellows, Anne Andermann, Astrid-Christoffersen-Deb, Aleksandra Leligdowicz, Benjamin Mappin-Kasirer, Alexander Lachapelle), including one in the recent 2018 cohort.[15] For medical school students entering in fall 2020, the mean four-year undergraduate GPA was 3.87 (excluding graduate GPA), and the mean MCAT score was 32.1 (85th–88th percentile).[16][17][18]

Admissions to the McGill Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences M.D., C.M. program are highly competitive with an acceptance rate of 5.7% for the Class of 2026.[19]

The Department of Anatomy and Physiology at McGill University ranked 3rd globally in the 2017 QS World University Rankings after Oxford University and Cambridge.[20]

Harry Houdini incident edit

In October 1926, renowned magician Harry Houdini was giving a lecture on exposed mediums and spiritualists at McGill University and had invited medical students to his dressing room at Montreal's Princess Theatre. J. Gordon Whitehead, a medical student and boxer, had asked Houdini if he could take a sudden punch to the stomach, as had rumoured to be the case; Houdini received several unexpected punches.[21] Feeling ill later that evening and after refusing medical treatment, Houdini was diagnosed with acute appendicitis a couple of days later and died on October 31, 1926. It remains a controversy whether Houdini died as a result of the punches or was simply unaware of a current appendicitis prior, and Whitehead was never charged.[22]

Notable faculty and alumni edit


Current and past faculty members edit

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ Cruess, Richard L. "Brief history of Medicine at McGill". McGill University. Retrieved 15 September 2015.
  2. ^ Crawford, DS. Montreal, medicine and William Leslie Logie: McGill's first graduate and Canada's first medical graduate. 175th. anniversary. [Osler Library Newsletter, No. 109, 2] [1]
  3. ^ "John Stephenson's Secret". McGill. McGill University. Retrieved 13 August 2014.
  4. ^ MD and MDCM graduates and their theses 1833–1877
  5. ^ "Former SNC-Lavalin VP pleads guilty in MUHC corruption trial – CBC News". CBC. 2018-07-11. Retrieved 2021-04-04.
  6. ^ "Preparing the Ground for Transformation: A Case Study of the MUHC's Experience" (PDF). www.healthcarecan.ca. Retrieved 2021-04-04.
  7. ^ "Campus Outaouais takes shape : Health e-News".
  8. ^ "McGill's founding Faculty gets a new name". reporter.mcgill.ca. 29 September 2020.
  9. ^ "Canadian Dental Association – Dentistry at McGill — The First 100 Years" (PDF). Retrieved August 1, 2019.
  10. ^ "McIntyre Medical Sciences Building & Osler Library". cac.mcgill.ca.
  11. ^ a b "McGill launches first combined MD–MBA program". Canadian Medical Association Journal. 156 (11): 1612. June 1997.
  12. ^ "MUHC at a Glance". McGill University Health Centre.
  13. ^ "McGill is Canada's top university: Maclean's Magazine". 18 October 2023. Retrieved Oct 22, 2023.
  14. ^ "QS World University Rankings – Medicine". QS World University Rankings. 2020. Retrieved 21 October 2020.
  15. ^ "McGill announces its 2018 Rhodes Scholars". 28 November 2017. Retrieved August 1, 2019.
  16. ^ "Admissions – by the numbers". McGill University, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. 2020. Retrieved 21 October 2020.
  17. ^ "Class Profiles | Admissions, Equity and Diversity – McGill University". Archived from the original on June 11, 2011. Retrieved July 2, 2011.
  18. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2015-04-13. Retrieved 2013-09-06.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  19. ^ "Admissions Profile Fall 2021 Admissions – Undergraduate entering class by admissions unit". Retrieved March 20, 2022.
  20. ^ "McGill ranked world's 3rd best university for study of Anatomy & Physiology".
  21. ^ "Houdini's Appendix | Dr. Gabe Mirkin on Health". 27 April 2021.
  22. ^ "What caused Harry Houdini's mysterious death?". PBS. 24 March 2019.
  23. ^ https://www.mcgill.ca/library/files/library/oln-136-summer2022.pdf[bare URL PDF]
  24. ^ Boyd DR; Cowley RA (1983). "Comprehensive regional trauma emergency medical services (EMS) delivery systems: the United States experience". World Journal of Surgery. 7, (1) (1): 149–157. doi:10.1007/BF01655923. PMID 6837054. S2CID 22681971.
  25. ^ "Patent for Preserving Blood Issued November 10, 1942 | USPTO". Archived from the original on 2019-11-29. Retrieved 2020-01-04.
  26. ^ "Dr. William Wright and Black Enrolment at McGill's Medical School". mcgill.ca.
  27. ^ "William Wright, first person of colour to earn a medical degree in Canada".
  28. ^ "Jack Wennberg, MD, MPH – Bio". The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. 2020. Retrieved 21 October 2020.
  29. ^ "StackPath". www.mcc.ca.
  30. ^ Avery, Donald H.; Eaton, Mark, eds. (2008). The Meaning of Life: The Scientific and Social Experiences of Everitt and Robert Murray, 1930–1964. The Publications of the Champlain Society. ISBN 9781442620315.
  31. ^ "Betty Price To Run For State House Seat". Roswell, GA Patch. May 20, 2015.

Further reading edit

External links edit

  • Medical Library Archives Collection, Osler Library Archives, McGill University. Collection of primary sources documenting the growth of the Medical Library at McGill University. Also includes announcements, university calendars, and directories related to the Faculty of Medicine

45°30′30″N 73°34′54″W / 45.50835°N 73.58155°W / 45.50835; -73.58155