UT Southwestern: Excellence, dedication, growth

The story of UT Southwestern is one of commitment to excellence, dedication to discovery and service to the community. It's also a story of phenomenal growth, fueled by exceptional people with an extraordinary vision: To establish an academic medical center second to none.

Since its formation in 1943, Southwestern Medical School has grown from a small wartime medical college into The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, a multifaceted academic institution nationally recognized for its excellence in educating physicians, biomedical scientists and health-care personnel.

Under the leadership of the late Dr. Edward H. Cary and Karl Hoblitzelle, a group of prominent Dallas citizens organized Southwestern Medical Foundation in 1939 to promote medical education and research in Dallas and the region. When Baylor University elected to move its school of medicine from Dallas to Houston in 1943, the foundation formally established Southwestern Medical College as the 68th medical school in the United States.

When a new state medical school was proposed after World War II, leaders of Southwestern Medical Foundation offered the college's equipment, library and certain restricted funds to The University of Texas, provided the university would locate its new medical branch in Dallas. The Board of Regents accepted this offer from the foundation, and in 1949 the college became Southwestern Medical School of The University of Texas. In 1954 the name was changed to The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. The present campus site on Harry Hines Boulevard was occupied in 1955 upon the completion of the Edward H. Cary Building. This placed the medical school faculty next to the newly built Parkland Memorial Hospital.

In November 1972 the name and scope of the medical school were changed with its reorganization into The University of Texas Health Science Center at Dallas. In approving the concept of a health science center, the Board of Regents provided for the continued growth of coordinated but separate medical, graduate and undergraduate components, interacting creatively on the problems of human health and well-being.

In 1986 the Howard Hughes Medical Institute opened a research facility on the campus. Concentrating on molecular biology, it has brought outstanding scientists to head laboratories in their specialties. These investigators also hold faculty positions in the basic science departments of the medical school and graduate school.

In October 1987 the UT System Board of Regents approved changing the name of the health science center to The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, reconfirming its original Southwestern identity. The medical center encompasses Southwestern Medical School, Southwestern Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and Southwestern Allied Health Sciences School.

UT Southwestern is located on Harry Hines Boulevard, a 10-minute drive northwest of downtown Dallas. Since the late 1960s the university has added more than 6 million square feet of new construction. The 60-acre South Campus includes 16 buildings housing classrooms, laboratories, offices, an extensive medical library, an auditorium, a large outpatient center and UT Southwestern University Hospital - Zale Lipshy Building.  Affiliated hospitals adjacent to the campus are Children's Medical Center Dallas and Parkland Memorial Hospital. UT Southwestern University Hospital - St. Paul Building is located on the West Campus.

 In 1987 the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation gave the university 30 acres near the South Campus for future expansion. A 20-year master plan for the site, named the North Campus, calls for six research towers, a  support-services building, an energy plant, and underground parking, in addition to the Bill and Rita Clements Advanced Medical Imaging and the Moncrief Radiation Oncology Building. Four research towers and an elevated campus connector, linking the South Campus with the North Campus, have been completed. In 1999 the university purchased an additional 50 acres from the MacArthur Foundation and a portion of the property was used to create an on-campus student-housing complex of 156 apartments. A second phase of 126 units opened in the summer of 2004. 

UT Southwestern's faculty and residents annually provide inpatient hospital care to nearly 92,000 people and oversee approximately 1.7 million outpatient visits in 2006. They also provide $371 million in unreimbursed professional services annually.

The faculty also includes 16 members in the presitigious National Academy of Sciences, 19 members in the National Institute of Medicine and more than 200 specialists listed in Best Doctors in America: Central Region.

And as international medical and scientific needs grow, so too will UT Southwestern. We will keep working to remain at the pinnacle of medical institutions worldwide.