History

The first successful open heart surgery. The first external pacemaker. The first pancreas transplant to cure diabetes.

Our University didn’t just have a front row seat to these discoveries – our experts played the starring role, making each advancement possible.

And we didn’t just stop there. We have a long history of changing the way patient care is delivered, and continually improving the way we teach the health care experts of the future.

For more than 120 years, the University of Minnesota has educated our state’s future doctors and made discoveries in diseases including cancer, diabetes, and heart and brain diseases.

A tradition of firsts

The University of Minnesota Medical School has a long legacy of medical accomplishment that have improved the lives of people all over the world. Just a few highlights include:

• Many of the world's first transplants, including bone marrow, kidney-bowel, intestine, kidney-pancreas and others
• Implantation of the first external pacemaker
• Development of the life-saving stomach pump
• Creation of a drug that increases survival rates for African Americans with heart failure
• World's first organ re-cellularization

Our biomedical breakthroughs have helped build Minnesota’s thriving bioscience industry, and the work we do today continues to provide jobs and a venue to bring our discoveries to market.

Creating a world-class Medical School

The University of Minnesota Medical School held its first classes in 1888, after three of the four private medical schools in Minneapolis Saint Paul offered their charters and resources to the state.

In 1905, the estate of Augustus F. Elliot gave money to the University to open its first hospital. And so began the Medical School's long tradition of clinical partnerships, with the opening of the Elliot Memorial Hospital in 1911.  Over the decades, private gifts led to the construction of more than a dozen medical buildings, clinics and hospitals on campus.  

In 1987, the main hospital services were moved into a new University Hospital. Ten years later, this facility merged with Fairview Health Services.

Today, with the construction of the state-of-the-art Biomedical Discovery District, we are poised to enter new frontiers in medicine.