Dartmouth Medical Milestones
1797
Dartmouth's "Medical Department" founded when founder Nathan Smith delivered first lecture, Nov. 22
1811
Dartmouth opens the nation's first building to use solely for medical education
1820
First US pharmacopeia published to standardize drug therapies, based on chemistry experiments and lectures at Dartmouth
1824
First successful tying of carotid artery
1838
Oliver Wendell Holmes, poet-physician joined faculty and introduced use of stethoscope to US medical curriculum
1839
Dartmouth graduates Samuel Ford McGill
, the first black student to graduate from a US medical school.
1846
Anesthesia introduced to Northern New England when used in Hanover
1893
Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital opened and became a Dartmouth teaching hospital
1896
First clinical x-ray in America performed to diagnose a broken arm
1927
The Hitchcock Clinic established
1946
White River Junction VA affiliation initiated
1955
Nation's first MULTISPECIALTY intensive care unit (ICU) established at Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital
1957
Standard technique for total ear reconstruction developed
1961
The Brattleboro rat, a laboratory model for diabetes insipidus, discovered
1972
Norris Cotton Cancer Center opens with a radiation therapy machine model that is one of three worldwide
1973
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) established
1977
Porous-coated cement-less hip implant developed
1981
First continuous infusion pump to deliver pain management drugs implanted in a patient
1983
Nation's first autologous bone marrow transplant for acute myeloid leukemia performed
1984
Role of glucocorticoids (cortisone-like steroid hormones) in stress determined
1985
Frameless stereotactic brain surgery developed, using computer guided imagery instead of frame attached to the head
1987
Northern New England Cardiovascular Study Group, now a national model for improving cardiovascular disease care, created
1989
First temperature sensitive mutants affecting respiration in any organism isolated, revealing new functions for respiratory genes
1989
Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences (now the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice) founded
1991
Novel immune system communicator molecule, CD154, on helper T cells identified
1993
Nations' first graduate program in evaluative clinical sciences established
1993
Essential regulator of blood cell formation encoded by the most frequently rearranged genes in leukemia purified and cloned.
1994
Key cholesterol metabolism gene (for ACAT enzyme) cloned
1995
Mechanism for how light resets biological clocks discovered
1996
Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care published, the first comprehensive documentation of patterns and variations in US medical practice
1996
Innovative New Hampshire vocational program pioneered by DMS psychiatrists to place those with mental illness in jobs proves successful and becomes national model
2001
Gene family of ultra small, micro RNA molecules discovered
2003
Aspirin shown to reduce the risk of colon cancer precursor
2003
First extensive study of health care disparities found more care is not necessarily better
2004
New vitamin, nicotinamide riboside, discovered in a vital molecular pathway, and in milk
2004
International Dartmouth-led clinical trial demonstrates successful cervical cancer vaccine
2006
Landmark Spine Patient Outcomes Research Trial (SPORT) first determines that patients with severe back pain improve with and without surgery
2007
VA study demonstrates effective therapy for women vets with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
2010
The first Center for Health Care Delivery Science launches
2012
Dartmouth Medical School renamed in honor of Audrey and Theodor Geisel.