George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences

U.S. News & World Report ranks GW Medicine as having the third best physician assistant program, the 40th best physical therapy program, as tied for the 58th best research medical school, and as tied for the 68th best primary care medical school in the United States.[3] The George Washington University Hospital has routinely served the medical needs of Presidents of the United States and members of U.S. Congress.[4]

GW Medicine is one of the most selective medical schools in the U.S. based on the number of applicants (rather than based on GPA and MCAT scores), with the fifth-lowest acceptance rate of any medical school in the United States.[1][2] GW SMHS experienced a rise in the number of applications, to 14,649 applications in 2012.[5] It receives more applications each year than any other allopathic medical school in the country.[6] The school has more than 700 medical students currently enrolled in its Doctor of Medicine (MD) program.

H. B. Burns Memorial Medical Building.

The School of Medicine and Health Sciences contains a variety of programs such as the M.D. Program, the Physician Assistant program, and the Physical Therapy program. Multiple nobel laureates have been affiliated with SMHS, including Ferid Murad, Vincent du Vigneaud, and Julius Axelrod. The school maintains numerous research centers and institutes. Among the most notable are The Dr. Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Cancer Research Center, the GW Heart and Vascular Institute, the McCormick Genomic and Proteomic Center, the W.M. Keck Institute for Proteomics Technology and Applications, The Rodham Institute, Washington Institute of Surgical Endoscropy, the Ronald Reagan Institute of Emergency Medicine, the GW Institute for Neuroscience, and the GW HIV/AIDS Institute.[7]

The Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library is the academic library for GW SMHS.[8]

Admissions

The George Washington University Hospital.

Admission to the School of Medicine and Health Sciences is the most competitive of the George Washington University's graduate programs. The School of Medicine has the lowest admissions rate in the United States based on the number of applicants (1.1 percent during 2016 admission cycle) according to US News and World Report.[11] For the MD class entering in 2019, a little more than 1,000 applicants were interviewed out of a total number of 12,057 applicants. Approximately 300 individuals were accepted with 184 enrolling. Students had an average GPA of 3.71, and a mean MCAT score of 512.8.[12] Among the 46 medical schools with the highest MCAT scores, the typical student had an average score of 517,[13] while the average MCAT for matriculants of all medical schools was 511.5.[14] Four out of every ten students holds an undergraduate degrees in the arts, humanities, or social sciences. A unique aspect of the school is the Practice of Medicine (POM) course that spans the entire length of a medical student's education. GW was one of the first in the country to place students in clinical settings from the start of their medical school experience.[15]

GW SMHS is home to many research centers and institutes. Among them are the Dr. Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Cancer Research Center, the GW Cancer Center, the Rodham Institute, the Institute for Biomedical Sciences, and the GW Institute for Neuroscience.[16]

In 2008, the LCME or Liaison Committee on Medical Education put the George Washington University Medical School on accreditation probation, citing a number of issues. While declining to publish the entire list, among the problems acknowledged by GW were its outdated system of managing its curriculum, the curriculum itself, high levels of student debt, student mistreatment, and inadequate study and lounge space for its students. Significantly, in 2008, GWU was the only medical school (among 129 LCME accredited institutions) to be placed on probation and the first such in fifteen years.[20]

GW implemented a plan to rectify these problems. Its probationary status was lifted in February 2010.[21] Subsequently, the two top GWU medical school administrators were forced to resign over the alleged conflicts of interest.[22]

• Notable Alumni of the GW School of Medicine & Health Sciences
• 
  Julius Axelrod, winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• 
  Kenneth P. Moritsugu, U.S. Surgeon General
• 
  Jeffrey Lieberman, President of the American Psychiatric Association
• 
  Vincent T. DeVita, President of the American Cancer Society
• 
  Neal D. Barnard, Founder of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
• 
  Soh Jaipil, leader of the Korean independence movement
• 
  James I. Ausman, Editor-in-Chief of Surgical Neurology International
• 
  Donna Christian-Christensen, Resident Commissioner of the U.S. Virgin Islands
• 
  Francis L. Delmonico, member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences
• 
  Neal Dunn, U.S. Congressman from Florida

Notable faculty

Nobel Prize in Medicine winner Ferid Murad, an SMHS professor since 2011.

• James Carroll (Identified germs as the cause of diseases and changed the course of medicine, worked with Dr. Theobald Smith)
• Peter Hotez (Distinguished Research Professor and Professor of Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine at The George Washington University School of Medicine, and Principal Scientist and Founding Director of the Human Hookworm Vaccine Initiative)
• Albert Freeman Africanus King (Famous for Manual of Obstetrics that became the national standard)
• Ferid Murad {Discovered the role of nitric oxide in the cardiovascular system, winner of 1998 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology}
• Walter Reed (Army Major who identified that yellow fever was transmitted by mosquitoes rather than direct contact with an infected patient)
• Frederick Russell (Introduced typhoid vaccine into the army)
• Thomas Sewall (Professor of Anatomy)
• Theobald Smith (Identified germs as the cause of diseases and changed the course of medicine, worked with Dr. James Carroll)
• Vincent du Vigneaud (1955 Nobel laureate in Chemistry, Head of the Biochemistry Department at the George Washington University School of Medicine)
• Judith L. Rapoport (expert on childhood onset schizophrenia, child psychiatry, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and obsessive compulsive disorder)

• Official website