175 Years of Medical Education in Buffalo

Dr. Cyrenius Chapin, Buffalo’s first physician settles in the region.

British burn Buffalo, despite the negotiations of Dr. Chapin, a colonel during the War of 1812. Buffalonians rebuild their village, beginning with the aptly named Phoenix Tavern.

Erie County separates from Niagara County, and the Medical Society of Erie County is founded.

The western terminus of the Erie Canal opens in Buffalo.

Buffalo is incorporated as a city. Dr. Ebenezer Johnson is the first mayor.

First issue of the Buffalo Medical Journal is published. The Buffalo Medical Association is formed to provide a free interchange of medical opinions.

The University at Buffalo is founded with the establishment of the Medical Department, which remained the only department for 40 years. The first class graduates in 1847.

Sisters of Charity Hospital—the first regional hospital and first teaching hospital in Buffalo—opens under the leadership of Sister Ursula Mattingly. Housed in a former school building at the corner of Pearl and Virginia streets, the new hospital is sorely tested by a devastating cholera outbreak in 1849. Sister Ursula’s willingness to take a chance on new therapies led to the recovery of 80 of the 134 cholera patients admitted. By 1872, the hospital has outgrown its facilities and a new site is purchased on Main and Delavan.

The university constructs a medical school building at Main and Virginia streets.

Buffalo is the thirteenth largest city in the United States substantially larger than Detroit, Cleveland or Chicago.

Buffalo General Hospital is dedicated.

Buffalo General Hospital is designated a United States Army General Hospital. It receives nearly 100 hundred soldiers from New England regiments involved in the Civil War, many of whom are totally exhausted and more than half of whom die.

High Street is paved and sewers are installed eight years after the founding of Buffalo General Hospital.

The medical school has nine teachers. Incoming students are advised that “Good board, with room, fuel and lights, can be found for $4.50 to $6 per week.”

Millard Fillmore Hospital is founded as the Buffalo Homeopathic Hospital.

An Alumni Association of the medical school is formed. The Alumni Club, which boasted about 800 members before the stock market crashed, acquired a clubhouse in 1921. The yellow brick mansion at 147 North Street was previously owned by General Edmund Hayes, for whom Hayes Hall is named. Dues were $40 a year.

Former Buffalo Mayor Grover Cleveland is elected president of the United States.

One of the oldest pediatric hospitals in the country, Children’s Hospital of Buffalo (now the John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital) is founded. The hospital greatly facilitated the development of the Department of Pediatrics in the UB medical school.

Charles Cary, MD, Class of 1875, worked untiringly to raise funds for a new medical school. It was largely through his efforts that a new school building opened in 1893 at 24 High Street.

The medical school moves into its new building on High Street.

Grover Cleveland begins his second (nonconsecutive) term as president of the United States.

Erie County Hospital is established in a building formerly occupied by the county hospital for the insane and an almshouse. Located on the site of the present-day South Campus at Main and Bailey, the facility was vacated due to a law that placed the care of the insane under state control.

Niagara University medical school merges with the University of Buffalo medical school.

President William McKinley, in Buffalo for the Pan American Exposition, is shot on September 6, 1901 by a self-declared anarchist, Leon F. Czolgosz.

Dr. Roswell Park—the surgeon of first choice—was in Niagara Falls performing an operation on a patient with a malignant lymphoma of the neck. Halfway through the operation a messenger burst into the operating room and said, “Dr. Park, you are wanted at once in Buffalo.” When Dr. Park answered that he could not leave the case even if it were for the president of the United States, the messenger answered: “Doctor, it is for the president of the United States.” In his place, Dr. Matthew D. Mann was chosen to perform the operation. The bullet had perforated both front and back walls of the stomach, taking off a tip of the pancreas, and lodging out of reach somewhere in the paraspinal musculature. The operation lasted 91 minutes and the patient was subsequently transferred to a private home, where he died September 14. Although the official announcement about the president’s death showed unanimity among his physicians, criticism of the handling of the president’s care continues to this day.

Mercy Hospital, founded by the Sisters of Mercy, opens in a house on Tifft Street in South Buffalo. It had 30 beds and cared mainly for the large Irish Catholic population of the city.

Of the 689 physicians practicing in Buffalo, at this time, 400 graduated from the UB Medical School.

In response to the critical need for a larger hospital to treat tuberculosis patients, Buffalo City Hospital is opened on Grider Street. In 1939, it was named the Edward J. Meyer Memorial Hospital in honor of the physician who led the hospital from its founding until his death in 1935. Meyer, Class of 1891, was responsible for the hospital’s close affiliation with the UB medical school. In 1946, the hospital passed from city to county control and was renamed Erie County Medical Center.

UB’s Endowment Fund Campaign raises $5 million in ten days from 24,000 subscribers.

A second $5 million Endowment Fund Campaign is successful, with the theme: “Buffalo’s boys and girls are her richest treasure and her highest obligation!” At the close of the campaign—on the same day the stock market crashed—the goal had been exceeded. Some of the pledges from 33,000 individuals were never received due to financial hardship.

First Spring Clinical Day, sponsored by the Medical Alumni Association, is held.

The School of Nursing begins as a division of the medical school.

David K. Miller, MD, of medicine, becomes the first full-time professor in a clinical department.

The bequest of DeWitt H. Sherman, MD, for a medical research building further strengthened the research efforts at the medical school. Dr. Sherman, professor of pediatrics, died in 1940 and the funds became available upon the death of his wife in 1957. The Sherman Hall addition to Capen Hall on the South Campus was dedicated in 1958.

Shortly after the United States declared war in 1941, medical students were inducted into the armed services. By the following summer, the curriculum had been reorganized into a three-year program with classes continuing year-round. Specialized training units were formed within the school. Every morning the students lined up in uniform in front of the High Street building and marched to a nearby field for drill exercises. Many volunteer and full-time faculty also served in the armed forces. Those who stayed behind placed their energies on patient care and teaching while research suffered. In 1945, the American Medical Association’s accreditation team recommended that the medical school be placed on probation, prompting dramatic changes.

In 1946, the Elizabeth Blackwell Society, named for the first woman medical graduate in the United States, was formed at UB by the 23 women medical students at the university.

Seven out of every 18 physicians in Buffalo are UB medical school graduates. The UB Centennial Fund campaign publicizes this statistic to boost its fundraising.

The Veterans Administration Hospital is dedicated. It is built on Main and Bailey streets in anticipation of the UB medical school relocating to the South Campus.

The medical school moves from High Street to the UB South Campus at Main and Bailey.

The medical school receives the largest bequest in its history up to that time. Ralph Hochstetter, president of Cliff Petroleum Company, gave $8 million to support fellowships in medical research. Named in honor of Henry C. Buswell, professor of medicine a Niagara University, the endowment significantly strengthened basic research at the school.

Undergraduate Education Program established, when the school began offering a bachelor of science degree in medical technology. Today, the school offers a BS degree in eight areas of study.

The private University of Buffalo joins the State University of New York System.

School of Health Related Professions is established.

Buffalo Physician magazine, originally named The Buffalo Medical Review, is launched. The magazine’s name changed again in 2013, when it became UB Medicine.

Samuel Sanes, MD ’30, shown here teaching in his lab, was a much-loved professor of pathology and legal medicine for more than 30 years. In the1950s, he was coordinator of Modern Medicine, one of the first medical shows on television. He was dedicated to educating the public, and when he contracted cancer in 1973, he wrote a series of articles for the Buffalo Physician on what he learned being a patient.

The original German Deaconess Hospital was founded in 1896. When New York State mandated that a university family practice residency be instituted, the program developed at the hospital became the UB Department of Family Medicine in 1969.

After 10 years of planning and seven years of construction, Erie County Medical Center opens its new 12-story “air-conditioned” building replacing the E.J. Meyer Memorial Hospital.

Buffalo General Hospital and Deaconess Hospital of Buffalo merge.

The medical school works with its affiliated hospitals to form the Graduate Medical Dental Education Consortium to govern residency and fellowship training programs in Buffalo. It offers postgraduate medical trainees a wide range of clinical experiences and training opportunities and serves as a national model for graduate medical education.

A 16-story medical tower is added to Buffalo General Hospital complex on High Street.

The school changes its name to the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

A 39,000-square foot research building is dedicated at the Buffalo Veterans Administration Hospital on Bailey Avenue.

PhD Program in Biomedical Sciences is started. (Originally known as the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in the Biomedical Sciences, the name was changed in 2011).

In 1995, the Biomedical Research Building opened on the South Campus.

The medical school opens a medical computing lab.

Buffalo General Hospital, Women and Children’s Hospital of Buffalo, Millard Fillmore Gates, Millard Fillmore Suburban and DeGraff Memorial merge to form the CGF Health System, renamed Kaleida Health on January 20, 1999.

For the first time, students take Step 1 of the United States Medical Licensing Examination electronically.

UBMD Physicians’ Group is formed.

A new entity called the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus—formerly referred to as the “High Street medical corridor”—is formed by the major players in medical care, research, education and biotechnology in Buffalo.

Affiliation agreements that fundamentally change the working relationship between the medical school and Kaleida Health and Erie County Medical Center are announced.

UB’s New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences opens. It is temporarily located at 901 Washington Street while construction begins on a building to house it. The new building opens in 2006.

Approximately 12 miles of fiber-optic cable is installed by UB, enhancing high-speed data links between its three campuses and its affiliated research institutes, an essential step in the creation of a life-sciences campus for Western New York.

Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute and its Structural Biology Research Center open on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. Located on Ellicott and Virginia streets, the building is also the new home to UB’s Department of Structural Biology.

New York State Supreme Court announces an agreement between Erie County Medical Center  (ECMC) and Kaleida Health, resolving a yearlong impasse on how to begin consolidation of ECMC and Kaleida services, paving the way for the creation of centers of medical excellence.

The largest gift to the medical school at the time is made by George M. Ellis Jr., MD ’45, who, upon his death, left the school close to $50 million. Ellis was a family physician who practiced out of his home in the rural Midwest for over 50 years, assisted by his wife, Gladys “Kelly” Ellis, RN, the nurse for the practice. Ellis wanted the gift to remain anonymous until both he and Kelly passed, which happened in 2018, at which time their names were made public.

“Not enough can be said about both the generosity and the timing of this remarkable gift,” said Michael E. Cain, MD, vice president for health sciences at UB and dean of the medical school. “This was something that George Ellis planned for close to 70 years, and it came in2011, just after UB—with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo—had made the decision to build a new home downtown for the medical school. Just knowing we had this gift invested made all the difference in our having the confidence to plan and move forward.”

The UB Clinical and Translational Research Center opens on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

UB receives a $15 million Clinical and Translational Science Award from the National Institutes of Health. With the grant, UB joins an elite tier of research institutes.

Jeremy M. Jacobs, his wife, Margaret, and their family give $30 million to the UB medical school. Jacobs is chairman of Delaware North, a global hospitality and food service company, and a longtime chair of the UB Council. The Jacobs family’s giving to the university totaled more than $50 million, making it one of UB’s most generous benefactors. In recognition of Jeremy Jacobs’ service and generosity to the university, the school is renamed the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. “This is a great and historic milestone for UB, as the first school-naming in our university’s long and distinguished history,” said UB President Satish K. Tripathi. “It is truly fitting that the medical school—UB’s founding school—would have this great distinction.”

The new medical school building, located at 955 Main Street in downtown Buffalo, opens December 12. The $375 million, 628,000-square-foot building is located just steps from where the medical school was located from 1893 to 1953.

Class size is increased to 180, up from 144, in an effort to help address physician shortages in Western New York and nationwide.

Conventus building opens on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus

First classes are held in the new medical school building on January 8, 2018.

The Medical Education and Educational Research Institute is established in the medical school.

UB’s Clinical and Translational Science Award is renewed by the National Institutes of Health for $21.7 million.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the medical school transitions to distance-learning in March. Fourth-year students participate in a virtual Match Day and commencement ceremony. Third- and fourth-year clinical rotations are altered to accommodate a two-and-a-half month pause in students’ access to clinical sites.