Stanford University School of Medicine
Stanford's medical school is older than Stanford itself. Its roots reach back to 1858, when the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific was founded in San Francisco. That institution evolved into Cooper Medical College, which Stanford acquired in 1908. For half a century, the medical school operated in San Francisco, over 30 miles from the main campus. In 1959, it made the move south -- a relocation that put one of the West Coast's most established medical schools at the center of what was becoming Silicon Valley.
The San Francisco Years
Cooper Medical College was named for Elias Samuel Cooper, a surgeon who founded the institution. When Stanford acquired it in 1908, the deal included a 30,000-volume medical library, a building site, and funds from the estate of Levi Cooper Lane. The Lane Medical Library was dedicated in 1912 and remained an integral part of Stanford's library system despite being located in San Francisco. For decades, the medical school's faculty and students commuted between two cities, a geographical split that limited integration with the rest of the university.
The Move South
The 1959 relocation to the Stanford campus transformed both the medical school and the university. Suddenly, medical researchers were next door to engineers, physicists, and computer scientists -- a proximity that would prove immensely productive. The campus grew to include the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine (1989), the Center for Clinical Sciences Research (2000), and the James H. Clark Center for bioengineering (2004). Stanford Medicine became known for bridging basic science and clinical practice, with faculty who could move from a laboratory bench to a patient's bedside within the same building.
At the Intersection
Today, Stanford's School of Medicine operates in a landscape that would have been unimaginable to its 19th-century founders. Its researchers use artificial intelligence to analyze medical imaging, develop gene therapies in labs adjacent to computer science departments, and collaborate with the engineering school on biomedical devices. The school's close relationship with Stanford Health Care and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital provides a clinical environment where new discoveries can be translated into patient care. The $185 million facility improvement plan approved in 1999 was just the beginning of a sustained building campaign that has remade the medical campus into one of the most advanced in the country.
From the Air
Stanford School of Medicine is at 37.43°N, 122.17°W on the north end of the Stanford campus, adjacent to the medical center. The medical campus complex is identifiable by its cluster of large institutional buildings. Nearest airports: Palo Alto (KPAO) 2 nm northeast, San Jose International (KSJC) 10 nm southeast.