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.