Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth

The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth is the graduate medical school of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. It was founded in 1797 by New England physician Nathan Smith and is one of the seven Ivy League medical schools. On April 4, 2012, the Dartmouth Medical School was renamed the Audrey and Theodor Geisel School of Medicine in honor of their many years of generosity to the college. Theodore Geisel adopted the name “Dr. Seuss” as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College. It was at Dartmouth that Ted Geisel “discovered the excitement of ‘marrying’ words to pictures,” he said in a 1975 interview with the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine. “I began to get it through my skull that words and pictures were Yin and Yang. I began thinking that words and pictures, married, might possibly produce a progeny more interesting than either parent.”

Duane Compton, PhD, and Joanne Conroy, MD.

The Geisel School of Medicine—the fourth oldest medical school in the nation—has produced many firsts and advancements in education, research and medical practice, including:

  • The first clinical X-ray in America
  • The first multispecialty intensive care unit
  • The first comprehensive examination of variations in health care costs in US medical practice (The Dartmouth Atlas)
  • Discovery of the mechanism for how light resets biological clocks
  • The groundbreaking national model, Supported Employment, which improves outcomes for those with serious mental illness
  • The first Center for Health Care Delivery Science launched in 2010, as well as a new Master’s in Health Care Delivery Science degree
  • The first use of the stethoscope in medical education–introduced by the Geisel School poet-physician faculty member, Oliver Wendell Holmes

At Geisel, we are leaders in education, research & health delivery

  • 17 faculty elected as Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
  • 10 faculty elected to membership in the prestigious National Academy of Medicine (previously the Institute of Medicine).
  • Three faculty who are members of the renowned National Academy of Sciences.
  • Geisel School of Medicine research funding accounts for 75% of Dartmouth College’s total research activity.
  • Recognized excellence in research, including leadership in genetics, bioinformatics, population health, cancer, cystic fibrosis, neuroscience, psychiatry, and health care delivery science research, among others.
  • Home of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice and its Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, which has revealed national disparities in health care spending.
  • Creating national models for programs that greatly improve health for those living with mental illness.
  • Transforming work in global health, including leading development of a TB vaccine in Tanzania, and creating a new system for educating physicians in Rwanda as one of seven medical schools in the world chosen by USAID and the Clinton Health Access Initiative. Other health equity partnerships include Peru, Kosovo, Haiti, China, American Indian communities and U.S. rural and urban health settings.