Saint Louis University School of Medicine

Saint Louis University School of Medicine (SLUSOM) is a private, American Medical School within Saint Louis University. Located in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, Saint Louis University School of Medicine was established in 1836 and has the distinction of awarding the first M.D. degree west of the Mississippi River.

The school comprises about 700 medical students, 550 faculty members and 550 residents in 48 graduate medical education programs including residencies, subspecialty residencies and fellowships. The School is a pioneer in geriatric medicine, chronic disease prevention, cardiovascular disease, organ transplantation, neurosciences and vaccine research among others. It is a leading center of research in five key areas: cancer, infectious disease, liver disease, aging and brain disorders, and heart/lung disease.

It provides health services on a local, national, and international level while conducting medical research and training physicians and biomedical scientists of the future. Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital and Saint Louis University Hospital are the two main affiliated teaching hospitals of the school.

Saint Louis University School of Medicine was established in 1836 as the Medical Department of the University and had the distinction of awarding the first M.D. degree west of the Mississippi River in 1839. Several affiliated doctors of national importance include William Beaumont, whose pioneering studies of the human digestive system opened a new world of research, and Daniel Brainerd, who later founded Rush Medical College (then part of the University of Chicago). Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital and Saint Louis University Hospital are the two main affiliated teaching hospitals of the school.

The Know-Nothing movement, an anti-immigrant and subsequently anti Catholic movement that surged through the United States in the 1840s and 1850s eventually led to the separation of the University's Medical Department from the University in 1854. As a result, the University was without a medical school for 59 years until the presidency of Father William Banks Rogers (1900 to 1908), during which plans were initiated for the integration of a new medical school into the University.