Government Medical College, Patiala was proposed in October 1951 by the
Patiala and East Punjab States Union government, under the First
Five-Year Plan. The first batch was started on 29 September 1953. The classes initially started from the old building of the Rajindra Hospital, which later shifted to the Archives Department, about 2 kilometers from its current location. With the construction of the new Rajindra Hospital in 1953 the old hospital building was made available to house some of the offices of the PEPSU state. Currently the Archives Department is housed in the Rajindra Hospital, which was built in 1877 and opened in January 1883. The nearby Dufferin Hospital started construction in November 1888 and opened in October 1890. The Rajindra Hospital is named after Maharaja Sir
Rajinder Singh and it receives a notable mention in 1908 by
The Imperial Gazetteer of India as the Rajindra Hospital. The hospital was known as Rajindra Hospital in pre-independence era, was sometimes mentioned as Rajendra Hospital, and currently uses the name Rajindra Hospital. With its attached 1009-bed Rajindra Hospital + 121-bed TB hospital is one of the largest health institutions in the region. The attached central clinical laboratory with facilities for hematology, pathology, microbiology, biochemistry is known as Bhupindra Clinical Laboratory. == Location and campus ==