Fordham University Medical School Closed in 1921

FORDHAM COLLEGES THAT ARE NO MORE-MEDICAL


Fordham‘s Medical School along with Fordham's College of Pharmacy and Marymount College (located in Tarrytown, NY). The factors responsible for each school’s demise are interesting to take notice of as we explore our university’s long history. Here is a look at the end of the Medical School.


MEDICAL SCHOOL

The Fordham University School of Medicine was established in 1905 and opened with six students  and seven professors. Originally located in Collins Hall, the medical school was moved to Thebaud.  The school found a home of its own when a new building was constructed near the Bathgate entrance in 1911. 


(Home of the Medical School from 1913-1921. Today Finlay Hall is a student dorm.)


Fordham Hospital was the first public hospital in the Bronx, New York City, having opened in 1892. Prior to that time, all the New York City municipal hospitals were in Manhattan. The hospital and university were affiliated at least to the extent of sharing the hospital president, who was also the dean of Fordham's medical school, which opened in 1913. Although Fordham University Archives indicates  that medical students received their training at 35 area hospitals-including neighboring Fordham Hospital.


Fordham Hospital stood where the Rose Hill campus parking garage now exists.



The Flexner Report


A majority of the medical schools were rated as defective with low admission standards, poor laboratory facilities, and minimal exposure to clinical material. Medical education at the turn of the century was a for-profit enterprise that was producing a surplus of poorly trained physicians. For a long period, until the second decade of the 20th Century, there existed very little standardization in medical training, especially where the balance between scientific research and clinical experience was concerned. Further, there was an alarming for-profit element with many medical schools (including physician instructors who were owners of the schools where they taught.)


Abraham Flexner, an American educator, although a non-physician,  was commissioned, by the Carnegie Institute , to head a study that would lead to reform of medical and higher education in the United States and Canada. A former school teacher and expert on educational practices he attended Johns Hopkins University majoring in Greek & Latin and philosophy. His educational philosophy ... in which students learned by doing, by solving problems, rather than memorization was a philosophy that he would translate into his transformation of medical education in America.

A majority of the medical schools were rated as defective with low admission standards, poor laboratory facilities, and minimal exposure to clinical material. Medical education at the turn of the century was a for-profit enterprise that was producing a surplus of poorly trained physicians. 

A century ago, the Flexner Report led to the closure of 75% of U.S. medical schools. 

Although not without its critics, especially for the impact his recommendations had on minority physicians and their access to medical training, (see below) The Flexner Report (1910) in part led to the closing of more than half of the Medical schools in the US. That included Fordham. 

Here is a paragraph right from his report that mentions Abraham Flexner’s visit to Fordham Medical School in 1909. Note: Roger of Salerno was a 13th Century university physician-if that helps with the context:

“ ...  the medical schools had not entered the Era of Reform. The dean of Fordham University's Medical School confessed to The New York Times, “We have not reached quite the standard of professional education which was required by law in the early part of the thirteenth century in… Salerno (5).” Quite so: Salerno in 1240, unlike Fordham and most other American medical schools, was hospitable to women, both as students and teachers. Salerno also had higher standards for admission. In his visitor's note of October 1909, Flexner noted that Fordham students had little more “than a four‐year high school education.” Flexner, p. 271



Roger of Salerno was a 13th Century university physician


By 1921 the Fordham University Medical School was no more. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tale Of Two Universities And How They Handled A Closed College

Image
  Long Island University & the closing of Southampton College vs. Fordham & the Closing of Marymount College in Tarrytown. L.I.U. In the course of the Southampton campus tenure under Long Island University, it produced 34 Fulbright scholars, most of which hailed from the marine science program. After many years of fiscal mismanagement, the University announced a multimillion-dollar capital campaign, launched a new interdisciplinary CORE curriculum and the construction of a new library to revamp the campus. After one year of a 10-year plan however, Long Island University officials ceased all plans, and Long Island University decided to effectively close the campus. On March 24, 2006, SUNY announced a final agreement for the purchase of the 81-acre (330,000 m2) Southampton College property from L.I.U. SUNY paid US $35 million ($54,792,500 in 2025.) for the 84-acre campus and its waterfront facility for its famed Marine Biology Department, as well as the NPR-affiliated WLIU FM...
Read more

The Fordham College Of Pharmacy Closing

Image
  THE FORDHAM COLLEGE OF PHARMACY CLOSING A number of factors impacted the closing of Fordham University's College of Pharmacy in 1972. Among them the national academic upgrading of pharmacist academic requirements; the changing role of independent pharmacies during the growth of chain retail stores; Fordham's lack of training pharmacy graduates for work in hospital settings as well as the industrial side of this field; The persistent rumor of then various school administrators' lack of support for retaining an expensive college at a Catholic Institution where most of the students were Jewish; Finally, the school's economic downturn in the 1970s bringing this to a head. In 1910 Jacob Diner, M.D., both a pharmacist and physician, received permission to create the Fordham College of Pharmacy. He became the first Jewish dean in the history of the University. Opening in 1912, it moved into the building known today as Thebaud Hall in 1914.   ( Fordham Centurion ©1941) Ford...
Read more

Michele Beach Harrington: Executive Director- Alumni and Employer Engagement Long Island University

Image
  Michele Beach Harrington                                                                                             Executive Director- Alumni and Employer Engagement Long Island University  I was a little nervous meeting her; In large part because she drove up to meet me. We picked a diner in Brewster, NY so she could return home easily, via I-684, to the Long Island campus. For those of us, of a certain age, Michele was quick to remember, “That Brewster is the town where ‘That Girl’ was from.” (Marlo Thomas’ character in the ...
Read more