SUNY Downstate Medical Center

2010 was SUNY Downstate's sesquicentennial, celebrating 150 years in medical education.

In 2010 SUNY Downstate celebrated its sesquicentennial, commemorating the year that the Long Island College Hospital (as it was then known) first opened its doors to students. Yet Downstate traces its roots back even further (to 1856) when a small group of physicians set up a free dispensary in Brooklyn to care for poor immigrants.

Known as the German General Dispensary, its original aim was to care for indigent Germans living in Brooklyn, but changing demographics soon required it to broaden its outreach. In 1857 it was reorganized as a charitable institution and renamed The St. John's Hospital—the first of many name changes.

Officially chartered by the state in 1858 as the Long Island College Hospital of the City of Brooklyn, it was authorized to operate a hospital and confer medical degrees on candidates who attended two lecture courses and completed a three-year preceptorship under a practicing physician. The notion that care at the hospital bedside should be included as an essential part of medical training was revolutionary for its time, but other medical schools soon adopted the approach and it came to be regarded as essential pedagogy.

In 1860 the school officially opened its doors to 57 (male) students. It was one of only 11 medical schools to admit African American students. The first faculty included many distinguished physicians, such as Dr. Austin Flint Sr., remembered for his role in introducing the stethoscope into standard medical practice in this country. Dr. Flint delivered the commencement address on July 24, 1860, when the school graduated its first new doctors.

In the following decades The Long Island College Hospital greatly expanded both its facilities and medical school curriculum. By the time of the First World War, admission was opened to women and postgraduate training had been introduced. In 1930 the college and hospital were separated from one another so that each would be under its own governing board. The following year, the school was rechartered as the Long Island College of Medicine.

In 1945, the college purchased a large tract of land that would become the site of the future Downstate Medical Center. The “Downstate” era began on April 5, 1950, with the signing of a merger contract between the State University of New York (SUNY) and the Long Island College of Medicine. The medical center came to be known as Downstate to distinguish it from the SUNY medical center in Syracuse, New York, which is known as “Upstate”. Several years later the current campus was built in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn.

In 1954 President Dwight D. Eisenhower laid the cornerstone for the Basic Sciences Building. In the following years, the complex grew rapidly, with the addition of a student center and residence halls, as well as a nurses' residence. In 1966 Governor Nelson Rockefeller officiated at the dedication of University Hospital of Brooklyn (UHB), Downstate's own teaching hospital. The School of Graduate Studies, the College of Health Related Professions, and the College of Nursing were established that same year. In 1987 Governor Mario Cuomo and Mayor Edward Koch helped break ground for the new Health Science Education Building, where most student classes now take place.

More recently, the medical center has entered a period of renewed growth and expansion. In addition to the completion of a multimillion-dollar capital improvement program for the hospital and new clinical and research facilities, the campus has expanded to include a Biotechnology Park and Advanced Biotechnology Incubator, and School of Public Health. The School of Public Health was structurally engineered by Leslie E. Robertson Associates, and designed by Ennead Architects.

The Advanced Biotechnology Incubator, designed for start-up and early-stage biotech companies, includes a commercial synthetic chemistry facility. Construction is underway to develop biotech research and manufacturing at the Brooklyn Army Terminal. These initiatives are part of a strategic plan to position SUNY Downstate as the center for biomedical discovery and development in Brooklyn.

SUNY Downstate offers students a broad professional education that prepares them for practice or careers in any location and community. The vast majority of students are drawn from the New York City metropolitan area. Many have immigrant backgrounds and are members of racial and cultural groups who are underrepresented in the health professions. The differences in background and outlook enhance the quality of the educational experience of all students.

Downstate's Colleges of Medicine, Nursing, and Health Related Professions and its School of Graduate Studies and School of Public Health collectively offer more than 30 health-focused programs.

SUNY Downstate is an important research facility where scientists and clinicians explore many urgent health problems. Historically, areas of research strength include cardiovascular biology, neuroscience, and instrumentation. Current strengths include GABAergic inhibition, learning and memory mechanisms; pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and cardiomyopathy; robotic prosthetic devices; HIV/AIDS; pain and addiction; optical tomography imaging technology; and fundamental cell biology (mechanisms of transcription and translation).

Downstate's role as the only academic medical center in Brooklyn is central to its powerful role in clinical, translational, and public health research. Downstate's research spans the entire “bench to bedside” spectrum as an integrated entity, bringing together basic scientists, clinical researchers, and practitioners with common interests.

Downstate is the fourth highest grant recipient of SUNY's 64 campuses. In FY 2011, sponsored research programs, including those funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), DARPA, and private foundations, totaled over $60 million. Downstate is the only healthcare facility in Brooklyn that holds the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology.

In 2013, SUNY Downstate released a court ordered financial audit which found the institution in need of capital funds citing large losses from 2007 through 2011. The audit cited bloated salaries for top administrators, underuse and poor financial decisions contributed to the losses.[9][10]

In January 2020, two SUNY Downstate surgeons filed lawsuits accusing the medical center of retaliation against them for reporting patient safety and death concerns in the heart-surgery and organ-transplant programs. Prior to the complaint, the institution paused these two programs in July 2019 due to pressure from the New York State Department of Health and the United Network for Organ Sharing when reviewers found issues in the programs and recommended a more extensive review in hopes to remediate the problems.[11][12]

• Alexander Skene, MD - authority on women's diseases; discovered the paraurethral glands known as Skene's gland or Skene's ducts (1880).
• Robert L. Dickinson, MD - published first “modern” pamphlet on voluntary birth control (1931).
• Chandler McCuskey Brooks, PhD - the Graduate School's founder, laid much of the groundwork in spinal cord and hypothalamic physiology, and cardiac pacemaker function (1950s).
• Robert Furchgott, PhD - awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for research on nitric oxide (1998).
• Carl Axel Gemzell, MD/PhD - first to use FSH to treat anovulatory women.

• Alzheimer's Disease Research Program
• Brooklyn Center for Health Disparities
• Center for Biomedical Imaging
• Center for Cardiovascular Muscle Research
• Center for Neurorobotics and Neuroengineering
• Center for Treatment and Study of Endometriosis
• Cancer Research Focus Group
• Henri Begleiter Neurodynamics Laboratory (Genetics of Alcoholism)
• HIV Center for Women and Children
• Northeast Terrorism Preparedness, Training, Education, and Research Center
• Transgenic Mouse Core Facility

• University Hospital of Brooklyn at Long Island College Hospital
• State University of New York Upstate Medical University

• Official website