Joan & Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University

The York Avenue entrance to Weill Cornell Medicine in December 2021
Former names	Cornell University Medical College, Weill Cornell Medical College
Type	Private medical school
Established	1898 (1898) (as Cornell University Medical College)[1]
Parent institution	Cornell University
Affiliation	NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar
Dean	Dr. Robert A. Harrington[2]
Academic staff	1,814[3]
Students	414[4]
Location	1300 York Avenue, New York City, U.S. 40°45′52.38″N 73°57′14.93″W / 40.7645500°N 73.9541472°W / 40.7645500; -73.9541472
Website	weill.cornell.edu

The Joan & Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University ^[5] (/waɪl/) is Cornell University's biomedical research unit and medical school in New York City.

The school and associated research organization is affiliated with several hospitals and medical centers including NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Cornell Medical Center, Hospital for Special Surgery, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Rockefeller University, all of which are located on or near York Avenue and Sutton Place.^[1] Weill Cornell has also been affiliated with Houston Methodist Hospital since 2004.^[1]

In 1991, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Rockefeller University joined Weill Cornell to establish the Tri-Institutional MD–PhD Program.^[1] In 2001, the school opened a campus in Qatar.^[6]

History

19th century

Weill Cornell Medicine

Weill Cornell Medicine's facade on the East River

Cornell Medical College's Stimson Hall on the main campus in Ithaca in 1910

The Cornell Medical College was founded on April 14, 1898, with an endowment by Col. Oliver H. Payne. The college was established in New York City because Ithaca, where the Cornell main campus is located, was deemed too small to offer adequate clinical training opportunities. James Ewing was the first professor of clinical pathology at the school, and for a while the only full-time professor.^[7][8][9]

20th century

The college founded the medical fraternity Phi Delta Epsilon on October 13, 1904.^[10]

A branch of the medical school operated in Stimson Hall on the main campus. The two-year Ithaca course paralleled the first two years of the New York school. The Ithaca location closed in 1938 due to declining enrollment.^[11]

The school became affiliated with New York Hospital, now NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital, in 1913.^[1] The institutions opened a joint hospital-educational campus in Yorkville in 1932.^[1]

In 1927, William Payne Whitney's $27 million donation led to the building of the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, which became the name for Cornell's large psychiatric effort. Its Training School for Nurses became affiliated with the university in 1942, operating as the Cornell Nursing School until it closed in 1979.^[11]

In 1936, the Swiss professor and psychiatrist Oskar Diethelm ^[12] contributed a collection of more than 10,000 titles related to the history of psychiatry, helping to build up the Oskar Diethelm Historical Library.^{[13] [14]}

The school was renamed the Weill Medical College of Cornell University after receiving a substantial endowment from then-Citigroup Chairman Sanford I. Weill in 1998.^[11]

21st century

In 2015, the school was renamed Weill Cornell Medicine.^[15][16]

On September 16, 2019, Augustine M.K. Choi announced Weill Cornell Medicine would make the cost of attendance free for all students who qualify for financial aid, made possible by a $160 million gift from The Starr Foundation, directed by Weill Cornell Medicine overseer Maurice R. Greenberg, in partnership with gifts from Joan and Board of Overseers Chairman Emeritus Sanford I. Weill.^[17][18]

In March 2024, Dr. Augustine M.K. Choi, professor and former Dean of Weill Cornell Medicine, was accused of altering data for two decades in his research on animals.^[19]

Notable alumni

• Iqbal Mahmoud Al Assad, pediatric cardiologist
• Robert Atkins, creator of the Atkins Diet
• Hilary Blumberg, professor of psychiatric neuroscience
• Carlos Cordon-Cardo, physician and scientist
• John P. Donohue, physician and testicular cancer researcher
• Mario Gaudino, cardiac surgeon and coronary revascularization expert
• Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease^[20]
• John Gartner, psychotherapist; author; former Johns Hopkins University Medical School professor; founder or dutytowarn.org PAC
• Wilson Greatbatch, inventor of the cardiac artificial pacemaker
• Iser Ginzburg, physician and journalist
• Nan Hayworth, physician and former U.S. Representative
• Henry Heimlich, physician and namesake of the Heimlich maneuver
• Roy S. Herbst, oncologist, lung cancer researcher, and academic at Yale Cancer Center and Yale School of Medicine
• Richard Hooker, surgeon and writer
• Peter Hotez, scientist, pediatrician, advocate in the fields of global health and vaccinology
• John Howland, pediatrician
• Mae C. Jemison, former astronaut
• C. Everett Koop, former Surgeon General
• Bonnie Mathieson, scientist and HIV/AIDS researcher
• Alton Meister, scientist and HIV/AIDS researcher
• Elizabeth Nabel, president of Brigham and Women's Hospital
• Utthara Nayar, cancer researcher at the Dan-Farber Cancer Institute
• James Peake, former United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs
• Jacob Robbins, endocrinologist at the National Institutes of Health
• Ida S. Scudder, medical missionary in India
• Ruth Westheimer (see below)

Notable faculty

• Lewis C. Cantley, Meyer Director and Professor of Cancer Biology at the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine
• Mario Gaudino, professor of cardiothoracic surgery, principal investigator of the ROMA trial, a multinational trial of radial artery grafting in CABG
• Antonio Gotto, cardiologist and dean emeritus
• Amos Grunebaum, obstetrician and gynecologist
• David P. Hajjar, dean emeritus, Professor and Professor of Pathology and Biochemistry, and the Frank Rhodes Distinguished Professor of Cardiovascular Biology and Genetics
• Yoon Kang, Richard P. Cohen, M.D. Professor of Medical Education and the senior associate dean for education
• Ben Kean, Professor of Medicine, founder of the Tropical Medicine Unit, chief of the Parasitology Laboratory at New York Hospital, and personal physician to the Shah of Iran, whose health and treatment was a factor in the Iran Hostage Crisis^[21]
• Otto F. Kernberg, psychiatrist
• David Kissane, Professor of Psychiatry and Chairman, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and inaugural Jimmie C. Holland Chair in Psychiatric Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
• Bruce Lerman, cardiologist, the Hilda Altschul Master Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, and Chief of the Division of Cardiology and Director of the Cardiac Electrophysiology Laboratory at Weill Cornell Medicine and the New York Presbyterian Hospital
• Fabrizio Michelassi, Lewis Atterbury Stimson Professor and Chairman of the Department of Surgery at Weill Cornell Medicine
• John P. Moore, virologist and professor at Weill Cornell Medicine
• Georgios Papanikolaou, Former professor of clinical anatomy at Cornell University Medical College, inventor of the Pap test^[22]
• Rajiv Ratan, professor, administrator, scientist, and the Burke Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medicine
• Douglas Scherr, surgeon, medical researcher and Clinical Director of Urologic Oncology at Weill Cornell Medicine
• Harold E. Varmus, Nobel Prize-winning scientist and the Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine
• Radu Lucian Sulica, Professor and Chief, Laryngology and Voice Disorders
• Ruth Westheimer (born Karola Siegel, 1928; known as "Dr. Ruth"), German American sex therapist, talk show host, author, professor, Holocaust survivor, and former Haganah sniper