Enter Brown . In the 1960s , the University had begun investing in biomedical research facilities and faculty . The school ’ s leaders consulted with state government and saw an opportunity to establish a medical program that would be imbued with the ethos of Brown , attract world-class physicians to practice in the state , and contribute newly trained physicians to serve Rhode Island . And with that , a medical school was born .
1972
Humanistic Medical Education
On March 10 , the Corporation of Brown University approves the creation of a four-year medical education program , paving the way for Rhode Island ’ s first and only medical school . The founders and first students of the school were charged with creating a curriculum that “ must meet the urgent needs of the broader medical education which doctors must have if they are to prepare themselves for a humanistic approach to medicine by studies providing an understanding of , and sensitivity to , the broadest aspects of human experience in its personal and social dimensions .”
Early leaders sign documents establishing the medical school .
1973
Rhode Island ’ s First Kidney Transplant
Robert W . Hopkins , MD , performs the first kidney transplant in Rhode Island on a high school student from Central Falls . A Harvard-trained vascular surgeon at The Miriam Hospital , Hopkins was just one of a number of physicians whose decision to come to Rhode Island was influenced by the presence of the medical school at Brown . Others include oncologist Paul Calabresi , MD , who pioneered the combination of chemotherapy , surgery , and radiation to treat cancer ; Milton Hamolsky , MD , an endocrinologist who designed a better test for thyroid hormone levels ; and Henry Randall , MD , the “ father of parenteral nutrition ” who developed intravenous feeding .
1975
First Class
On June 2 , Brown University awards Doctor of Medicine degrees to 58 students — 45 men and 13 women — the first people since the 1820s to pursue and complete academic medical studies and clinical training in Rhode Island . With that , the school attains full accreditation from the Association of American Medical Colleges .
The first graduating class to receive their Doctor of Medicine degrees .
1976
Expanded Access with Early Admission
The school ’ s founding dean , Stanley Aronson , MD , and Professor Richard McGinnis , PhD , of Tougaloo College — a historically black college in Jackson , MS — initiate an Early Identification Program to provide a pathway for outstanding college students to pursue their medical studies at Brown . The partnership is an outgrowth of a student exchange program created in 1964 , at the height of the civil rights movement , between Brown and Tougaloo . The EIP also offers provisional admittance to exceptional Rhode Island residents enrolled at the University of Rhode Island , Rhode Island College , or Providence College in their junior year of college . The EIP continues today as a route to medical school admission at Brown for students from Rhode Island and Tougaloo .
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