Stanford Medical School

Stanford University School of Medicine

Type	Private
Established	1908
Parent institution	Stanford University
Dean	Lloyd B. Minor
Academic staff	801
Students	3,498
Postgraduates	1,158
Location	Stanford, CA, USA
Campus	Suburban
Mission	Improve health through leadership, discoveries, and innovation.
Website	http://med.stanford.edu

Stanford University School of Medicine is the medical school of Stanford University and is located in Stanford, California. It is the successor to the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific, founded in San Francisco in 1858 and later named Cooper Medical College; the medical school was acquired by Stanford in 1908. Due to this descent, it ranks as the oldest medical school in the Western United States. The medical school moved to the Stanford campus near Palo Alto, California in 1959.

The School of Medicine, along with Stanford Health Care and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, is part of Stanford Medicine. It is a research-intensive institution that emphasizes medical innovation, novel methods, discoveries, and interventions in its integrated curriculum.

In 1855, Illinois physician Elias Samuel Cooper moved to San Francisco in the wake of the California Gold Rush. In cooperation with the University of the Pacific (also known as California Wesleyan College), Cooper established the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific, the first medical school on the West Coast, in 1858, on Mission Street near 3rd Street in San Francisco. The school underwent many changes until Cooper's nephew, Levi Cooper Lane, established a new campus at the intersection of Webster and Sacramento Streets in 1882; at that time, the school was christened Cooper Medical College. Lane also built a hospital and a nursing school (forerunner of the Stanford School of Nursing) and made provision for the creation of Lane Medical Library.

In 1908, Cooper Medical College was deeded to Stanford University as a gift. It became Stanford's medical institution, initially called the Stanford Medical Department and later the Stanford University School of Medicine. The school expanded and built up a reputation for excellence and providing cutting edge clinical care. In the 1950s, the Stanford Board of Trustees decided to move the school to the Stanford main campus near Palo Alto. The move was completed in 1959.