• The Medical School was founded in 1848 and admitted its first students in fall 1850, holding classes in a newly constructed building on the Diag where the Randall Laboratory now stands.
• U-M was the first university to make its Medical School professors part of the main faculty, paving the way for them to advocate for the creation of a hospital so their students could have better access to learning from observing the care of patients.
• Female medical students were admitted starting in 1870 — the first ones to attend a major medical school.
• The first biomedical research laboratories at U-M, used to teach and explore chemistry and the germ theory of disease, were built in the late 1800s.
• As the number of patients grew rapidly, new wings called pavilions were added to the rear of the original hospital in 1876, funded by grants from the state and city.
• The entire patient care operation moved to new brick buildings on Catherine Street in 1891, although medical education and research remained in buildings on or near the Diag until the mid-20th century.
• Famed Detroit architect Albert Kahn designed the next U-M hospital, opened in 1925 and later known as “Old Main.” It was the largest and most technologically advanced hospital in the country.
• The Women’s Hospital opened in 1950, and C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital opened in 1969 — both were combined into a new building that opened in 2011.
• The current University Hospital opened in 1986, with the Taubman Center attached.
• The reach of U-M care grew rapidly throughout Michigan in the past two decades, through centers run by U-M and affiliations with other health systems.
• Ground was recently broken for a new inpatient tower for advanced adult care, at the corner of Ann Street and Zina Pitcher Place. It’s set to open in 2024.
