| 1838 |
The Medical Department of Hampden-Sydney College opens; the first Dean is Dr. Augustus Warner. |
| 1844
| The Medical Department moves into its first permanent home, the Egyptian Building. |
| 1854 |
The Medical Department receives an independent charter from
the Virginia General Assembly and becomes the Medical College
of Virginia. |
| 1855 |
Research is already underway at MCV. Dr. Charles E. Brown-Sequard is conducting work in the basement of the Egyptian Building that leads to an internationally acclaimed paper on endocrinology. |
| 1860 |
In return for a $30,000 appropriation, MCV conveys all its property to the commonwealth of Virginia and becomes a state institution |
| 1861 |
A new hospital opens, constructed with funds acquired in 1860. |
| 1861-65 |
During the American Civil War, MCV remains open and graduates a class each year of the war. It is the only Southern school still in existence with this distinction. |
| 1867 |
MCV’s first outpatient clinic is established. |
| 1889 |
MCV Alumni Association is organized. |
| 1893 |
College of Physicians and Surgeons, later University College of Medicine, is established by Dr. Hunter Holmes McGuire just three blocks away from MCV. |
| 1894 |
MCV medical curriculum is lengthened to three years. |
| 1900 |
MCV lengthens its medical curriculum to four years. It is among the first in the country and the first in the state to do so. |
| 1903 |
Memorial Hospital opens as a private hospital but is used by the faculty at MCV. |
| 1912 |
McGuire Hall opens as the new home of the University College of Medicine. |
| 1913 |
MCV and UCM merge through the efforts of Dr. George Ben Johnston and Dr. Stuart McGuire. MCV acquires the Memorial Hospital as a result of the merger. |
| 1918 |
Innis Steinmetz, class of 1920, is the first woman to enter the medical school. |
| 1918-19 |
Members of the MCV faculty serve with Dr. Stuart McGuire during the war at Base Hospital 45 in Toul, France. |
| 1920 |
Dooley Hospital and St. Philip Hospital open. |
| 1925 |
Dr. William T. Sanger, former secretary for the State Board of Education, becomes MCV’s third president. |
| 1926 |
Dr. William Branch Porter is named the first full-time professor of medicine. |
| 1932 |
Tompkins-McCaw Library opens. |
| 1936 |
First graduate degrees are conferred. (Biochemistry) |
| 1938 |
MCV celebrates its centennial. |
| 1938 |
New laboratory and outpatient clinic opens (A. D. Williams Memorial Clinic). The building is constructed with a Public Works Administration grant of $239,850. |
| 1941 |
The new MCV Hospital (MCV West Hospital) opens to national acclaim. |
| 1942-45 |
MCV organizes a medical unit to serve during the war. General Hospital 45 serves in North Africa and Italy. |
| 1947 |
The first civilian burn unit in the country was established at MCV under the direction of Dr. Everett Evans. |
| 1949 |
MCV Foundation is incorporated. |
| 1952 |
First Ph.D. degree is awarded. (Pharmacology) |
| 1955 |
New doors are opened as MCV graduates its first African-American student, Jean Harris. |
| 1956 |
Dr. Robert Blackwell Smith becomes the fourth and last president of MCV. |
| 1956 |
Dr. David Hume, a pioneer transplant surgeon, is appointed chairman and professor of surgery. Dr. Hume had performed the world’s first kidney transplant while still at Harvard and performed Virginia’s first kidney transplant as well. |
| 1956-58 |
E. G. Williams Hospital opens in two phases. |
| 1963 |
Medical Education Building (named for William T. Sanger in 1970) opens. |
| 1966 |
School of Basic Sciences and Graduate Studies is established. |
| 1967 |
Self-Care Unit opens and later is named for former Dean of the School of Medicine, Dr. Kinloch Nelson. |
| 1968 |
The first heart transplant at MCV is performed by Dr. Richard R. Lower, the ninth nationally and the 16th worldwide. |
| 1968 |
Virginia Commonwealth University is created through the merger of Richmond Professional Institute and the Medical College of Virginia. |
| 1975 |
A cancer center is established with a grant from the National Cancer Institute. |
| 1980 |
Alumnus Baruj Benacerraf wins the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology. |
| 1982 |
MCV Main Hospital opens, a modern, 14-story, 539-bed facility costing in excess of $60 million dollars. |
| 1983 |
Massey Cancer Center opens under the direction of Dr. Walter Lawrence Jr., a surgeon and former president of the American Cancer Society. |
| 1986 |
The renovated North Hospital (former E.G. Williams Hospital) opens. |
| 1993 |
School of Medicine and School of Basic Health Sciences merge. |
| 1996 |
Virginia Biotechnology Research Park opens. |
| 1996 |
Medical Sciences Building opens. |
| 1997 |
Medical College of Virginia Hospitals Authority is created. |
| 1998 |
Surgeons perform what is believed to be the country’s first living donor liver transplant between unrelated adults. A year later, the world’s first stranger to stranger unrelated living donor transplant is performed at MCV Hospitals. |
| 2000 |
Virginia Commonwealth University Health System Authority is established. |
| 2001 |
VCU and INOVA Fairfax partner to establish medical program in Northern Virginia. |
| 2002 |
Gateway Building opens at VCU Medical Center. |
| 2005 |
VCU Board of Visitors appoints Jerome F. Strauss III, M.D., Ph.D., to be dean of the VCU School of Medicine. |
| 2006 |
Cardiac surgery team at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Pauley Heart Center performs the first artificial heart implant on the East Coast. |
| 2006 |
Massey Cancer Center’s opens Goodwin Research Laboratory, an 80,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art cancer research laboratory. |
| 2008 |
Claude Moore Health Education and Research Center opens in Northern Virginia and houses high-tech simulation lab, uniquely designed research facility and VCU School of Medicine. |
