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Dartmouth Medical School Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center

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Vital Signs

Then & Now

A reminder of the pace of change, and of timeless truths, from a 1961 publication titled Medical Education and Dartmouth:

"In June of 1959, construction was started on . . . a seven-story Medical Science Building. . . . Designed by Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott, the structure provides a separate floor for each of the School's departments . . . anatomy, biochemistry, microbiology, pathology, pharmacology, and physiology."

1974
Year the Medical Science Building was renamed the Remsen Building

1991
Year Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center moved into a new facility in Lebanon, N.H., designed by Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott


A reminder of the pace of change, and of timeless truths, from a mid-1970s booklet about plans to expand Dartmouth Medical School:

"Dartmouth is expanding its total [M.D.] enrollment while encouraging minority groups and women to enter the medical profession. By 1976, enrollment will have almost doubled, from 104 in 1969 to 192. . . . Competition for admittance to the program continues to be fierce."

1987
Year DMS first admitted more women than men

319
Number of M.D. students enrolled in 2008-09

5,300
Applicants for 84 first-year M.D. places in 2009

27%
First-years who are of color or international in 2009-10


A reminder of the pace of change, and of timeless truths, from the Fall 1980 issue of this magazine:

Anatomy professor Wilbert Chambers wrote about an illustrious predecessor: "While in Europe, [Oliver Wendell Holmes] had made two important purchases, a stethoscope and a microscope. . . . When Dartmouth was looking for a professor of anatomy and physiology in 1838, here was a young Harvard Medical School graduate with two years of study abroad . . . who owned and used two instruments that were curiosities on this side of the Atlantic. His expertise in the use of these instruments would add much to the curriculum" of Dartmouth Medical School.

92
Number of microscopes in DMS's teaching lab today


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