History and background . In 1902, the two-year
Wake Forest College Medical School was founded on the college campus in Wake Forest, North Carolina. Thirteen students made up the charter medical class. Tuition was $37.50 per term; additional fees were charged for laboratories and student health care. The Southern Baptist denomination in 1919 began its first planning for a hospital directed primarily at the care of the poor. Applications were received from
Raleigh,
High Point, Charlotte,
Greensboro,
Salisbury and Winston-Salem. The Southern Baptists chose Winston-Salem, and an 88-bed hospital opened there in 1923. In the wake of a 1935 Carnegie Foundation report suggesting the dissolution of two-year medical schools, those schools began to consider alternatives. Meanwhile, the death of
Bowman Gray, the president of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in Winston-Salem, also in 1935, led his family to consider how to best make use of $750,000 that he left to be put toward a community cause. The Gray family decided to offer the money to a medical school willing to relocate to Winston-Salem. After the
University of North Carolina rejected a chance to obtain the money because it did not want to leave
Chapel Hill, Wake Forest's medical school dean,
Coy Cornelius Carpenter, in 1939 helped to forge a deal for the funds. In 1941,
Bowman Gray School of Medicine opened on the campus of N.C. Baptist Hospital with 75 students, including 45 freshmen and 30 sophomores. The rest of Wake Forest University would follow the medical school to Winston-Salem in 1956, in an effort led by the family of
R.J. Reynolds. In 2011, the school's name would be changed slightly again, to Wake Forest School of Medicine, as a part of a restructuring that also renamed the institution's clinical component as Wake Forest Baptist Health. The School of Medicine's strong research focus is evident in its translational work, which raised about $345.5 million in licensing revenues from 2010-2014. The newer buildings and facilities that are a focus of research for students and faculty are Ardmore Tower, which is home to Brenner Children's Hospital, the J. Paul Sticht Center on Aging and Rehabilitation, the Comprehensive Cancer Center and Wake Forest Innovation Quarter. The latter is a 200-acre, mixed-used center in downtown Winston-Salem focusing on the biomedical and material sciences and information technology fields. Tenants at the Innovation Quarter include the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM), which was established in 2004 and has risen to national prominence. WFIRM's scientists are working to engineer more than 30 different replacement tissues and organs and to develop healing cell therapies—all with the goal to cure, rather than merely treat, disease.
Admissions and rankings For the entering class of 2021, 10,703 students applied for admission, 504 were interviewed, and 326 were accepted for 145 spots giving rise to a 3% acceptance rate.
Academics and curriculum The School of Medicine is a member of the
Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and is accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), which is jointly sponsored by the Council on Medical Education of the
American Medical Association (AMA) and the AAMC. In 2017, the 'Wake Ready!' curriculum was implemented changing the focus from the traditional 2 preclinical + 2 clinical years of curriculum to three phases. During the first phase, Foundations, which is 18 months in length,
basic science courses are integrated with both clinical and patient care organized by systems. Additionally, students learn about bedside clinical skills, bioethics and population health. The second phase, Immersion, is 12 months in length, allows students to rotate through a series of required
clerkships in which the students are members of the medical team learning to treat patients in a hospital setting. Students complete 8 weeks of internal medicine, 7 weeks of surgery, 6 weeks of pediatrics, 2 weeks of ambulatory internal medicine, 7 weeks of obstetrics/gynecology & women's health, 4 weeks of family medicine, 4 weeks of psychiatry, 4 weeks of neurology, and 2 weeks of anesthesiology during this time. Additionally, radiology and basic clinical procedures are integrated longitudinally. The last phase, Individualization, is 14 months in length and allows for students to choose their rotations based on their interests and future career plans, including time for research or away rotations at other institutions. Students also have the opportunity to do electives in foreign countries and gain exposure to the differences in care in other countries. Students do clinical and research work primarily with Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Wake Forest Baptist Health—Brenner Children's Hospital, W.G. Hefner Salisbury Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences.
Joint degree programs The School of Medicine offers, in conjunction with Wake Forest University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, a joint M.D./Ph.D. degree from the M.D./Ph.D. Program It also offers a joint M.D./M.A. degree in bioethics. The joint Ph.D./M.B.A. program was established in 1999 by the Wake Forest University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Schools of Business, with the goal of providing Ph.D. scientists with the opportunity to obtain advanced business training and internship opportunities. Finally, there is an M.D./M.S. offered in Clinical and Population Translational Sciences through Wake Forest University's Department of Public Health Sciences.
Institutes and centers Physicians, scientists and students at Wake Forest School of Medicine often work in the research- or education-based institutes and centers affiliated with the school. These include:
Institutes and research-based centers • Childress Institute for Pediatric Trauma • Clinical and Translational Science Institute • Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine • Brain Tumor Center of Excellence • Center for Biomedical Informatics • Center for Biomolecular Imaging • Center for Cancer Genomics • Center for Diabetes Research • Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine Research • Center for Integrative Medicine • Center for Worker Health • Comprehensive Cancer Center • Hypertension and Vascular Research Center • Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity • J. Paul Sticht Center on Aging and Rehabilitation • Wake Forest Primate Center
Education and training-based centers • Center for Applied Learning • Center of Excellence for Research, Training and Learning • Women's Health Center of Excellence for Research, Leadership, Education
Innovation-based centers • Wake Forest Innovations • Center for Healthcare Innovation
Student life Students participate in a number of volunteer and common-interest organizations. Delivering Equal Access to Care (DEAC) is a student-run clinic serving uninsured, low-income residents of Winston-Salem.
Oasis is an online magazine that publishes student artistic and literary works. Other student organizations include interest groups that correspond with particular specialties and Wake Forest chapters of the American Medical Association,
Student National Medical Association and
Operation Smile. Many students also are active in
intramural sports organized through the university. A significant number of students also participate in research, and the Medical Student Research Program funds student research projects during the summer between their first and second years. The School of Medicine also participates in the
Albert Schweitzer Fellowship program, with a number of students winning fellowships each year.
Notable faculty and alumni , M.D. , M.D. •
William Allan, genetics •
Anthony Atala, regenerative medicine and urology •
Ruth Benca, sleep medicine •
Ken Blum, neuropsychopharmacology and genetics •
Paul Bucy, neurology and neurosurgery •
Coy Cornelius Carpenter, dean •
Richard Cytowic, neurology •
James Forrester, politician • Dwayne Godwin, neuroscientist and author •
Max Gomez, medical reporter •
Tinsley Randolph Harrison, internal medicine •
Seth C. Hawkins, emergency/wilderness medicine •
David L. Heymann, infectious disease •
Robert Lanza, regenerative medicine •
Thomas T. Mackie, preventative medicine and infectious disease •
Thomas Marshburn, astronaut •
Jerry Punch,
ESPN commentator •
Russel J. Reiter, biology of melatonin •
Leon S. Robertson, epidemiology ==Charlotte campus==