Baylor College of Medicine

Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), located in the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas, USA, is a highly regarded medical school and leading center for biomedical research and clinical care. The school, located in the middle of the largest medical center in the world, has affiliations with eight teaching hospitals, including: Texas Children's Hospital, the Level I Trauma Center Ben Taub General Hospital, MD Anderson Cancer Center, The Methodist Hospital, The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research (TIRR), Menninger Clinic, The Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center and St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital.

The medical school has been consistently considered in the top-tier of programs in the country and is particularly noted for having the lowest tuition among all private medical schools in the US. Its Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences is among the top 10 percent of all graduate schools in the United States. On June 21, 2010, Dr. Paul Klotman was named as the new President and CEO of the Baylor College of Medicine.

History
The school was formed in 1900 in Dallas, Texas, by a small group of physicians who aimed to improve medical practice in North Texas. Originally called the University of Dallas Medical Department, the school opened its doors October 30, 1900, with 81 students. In 1903, an alliance with Baylor University in Waco was formed and the name changed to Baylor University College of Medicine.

By 1918, Baylor University College of Medicine was the only private medical school in Texas. The M.D. Anderson Foundation invited Baylor University College to join the newly formed Texas Medical Center in 1943. The College opened in the medical center on July 12, 1943, in a converted Sears, Roebuck & Co. building, with 131 students. four years later, the College moved into its present site in The Roy and Lillie Cullen Building, the first building completed in the Texas Medical Center.

In 1948, Michael E. DeBakey joined the faculty as chair of the Department of Surgery, and the following year, The Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences was established. The College's rise in prominence began in the 1950s when Dr. DeBakey's innovative surgical techniques garnered international attention. In the 1960s, the college underwent its first major expansion.

In 1969, the College separated from Baylor University and became an independent institution, which allowed it access to federal research funding. The institution's name changed to Baylor College of Medicine. That same year, the College entered into an agreement with the state legislature to double its class size in order to increase the number of physicians in Texas.

Baylor College of Medicine opened the Baylor Clinic on June 29, 2005, and was in the process of building a hospital and clinic, to be called The Baylor Hospital, which was slated to open sometime in 2011. In 2009, the college postponed construction, due to lack of funds. The outer shell of the hospital has been completed, while the interiors remain unfinished. In March 2012 it was decided that BCM will not finish its partially constructed hospital started in 2006 but will instead convert the building to house its outpatient clinics. In 2009, BCM entered into extensive discussions with Rice University regarding a potential merger between the two Houston institutions. After many meetings between the two schools, the boards at both institutions mutually decided that each school would be better off as an independent entity. Following this development, Baylor University entered into talks with BCM with a goal of strengthening ties to the medical school, however, the BCM board decided that it would remain an independent institution.

Medical school
Each year around 172 medical students join the medical school, about 75% of whom are Texas residents. For entering medical students in 2010, the average undergraduate GPA was 3.80 and the average MCAT score was 33.1. In the 2013 U.S. News and World Report top medical schools rankings, Baylor College of Medicine was ranked 21st for research and 49th for primary care making it the highest ranked medical school in Houston.

Baylor College of Medicine is the only private medical school in the southwest region of the United States, and has the lowest tuition of all private medical schools in the United States. Baylor is one of the few medical schools in the United States that is structured with an accelerated 1.5 year preclinical curriculum (the others are Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City,the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, University of Virginia School of Medicine, and Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia). BCM has nearly 4,000 faculty on staff (including affiliated hospital faculty, volunteer faculty and emeritus) with a faculty:student ratio of 5.5 faculty for every 1 medical student.

Baylor College of Medicine is also one of only 45 medical institutions in the United States to offer a Medical Scientist Training Program. This federally-sponsored and highly-competitive program allows exceptionally well-qualified students to study for a combined MD and PhD in a medical science to be earned in 7-9 total years. Typically, 8-12 students are accepted for this program per year, and receive free tuition in addition to a stipend of $29,000 per academic year along with other benefits.

Graduate school
Its Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences ranked 26th for best Ph.D. program in the biological sciences. Additionally, several individual departments earn particularly heavy NIH funding, receiving several "Top Ten" rankings by the NIH in 2005: Overall, in 2005 BCM ranked 13th in terms of research funding from the National Institutes of Health, though this ranking system was discontinued after 2005 since it inaccurately assessed actual funding to institutions. The 2010 US News methodology which uses a different criteria for assessment therefore ranks the graduate school differently and does not assess the individual departments.
 * No. 1: Molecular & Cellular Biology; Molecular and Human Genetics; and Pediatrics
 * No. 2: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
 * No. 8: Neurosciences

Thomson ScienceWatch, which quantifies citations-per-paper for work published between 2005–2009, ranked BCM 8th in Molecular Biology/Genetics, 16th in Neurobiology/Behavior, and 4th in Pediatrics. BCM was also ranked 5th on a list high impact institutions in the field of Neuroscience between 2001 and 2005.

BCM's research faculty includes 6 members of the National Academy of Sciences and 3 members of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

About 100 students join the graduate program each year, of which one-half were women and one-third were graduates from foreign schools. The average graduate student GRE score is above the 70th percentile.

Many departments of the graduate school collaborate with Rice University and other institutions within the Texas Medical Center. Currently, 489 graduate students are enrolled in one of the fourteen different PhD programs. These programs are:


 * Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
 * Immunology
 * Molecular and Cellular Biology
 * Molecular and Human Genetics
 * Molecular Physiology & Biophysics
 * Molecular Virology & Microbiology
 * Neuroscience
 * Pharmacology
 * Cardiovascular Sciences
 * Cell and Molecular Biology
 * Developmental biology
 * Structural and Computational Biology & Molecular Biophysics
 * Translational Biology & Molecular Medicine
 * Clinical Scientist Training Program

Biomedical research
Baylor College of Medicine has dedicated more than 800000 sqft of its space for laboratory research, and is adding another 322,000 in the next few years. According to the National Science Foundation 2004, BCM ranks sixth in R&D spending in the life sciences, behind UCSF, Johns Hopkins, UCLA, University of Washington, and University of Pennsylvania. Housed within this research space are exceptional centers and facilities, such as:
 * BCM's Human Genome Sequencing Center
 * The Human Neuroimaging Lab
 * The Dan L. Duncan Cancer Center
 * The Center for Cell and Gene Therapy
 * The Huffington Center on Aging
 * The Influenza Research Center
 * The National Center for Macromolecular Imaging
 * The W.M. Keck Center for Computational Biology
 * The Epigenomics Data Analysis and Coordination Center
 * State-of-the-art core facilities, including microscopy, DNA sequencing, microarray, and protein sequencing
 * One of the largest transgenic mouse facilities in the country

Graduate Program in Nurse Anesthesia
Baylor College of Medicine houses one of the top-ranked nurse anesthesia programs in the country. Currently accepting 15 students per year, applicants are among the brightest minds in critical care nursing, each possessing experience in a variety of intense settings. The program is academically front-loaded with students beginning coursework in January and completing 18 months of comprehensive didactic preparation prior to immersion into clinical anesthesia training.

Clinical anesthesia experiences are gained within the distinguished Texas Medical Center, and include an array of settings, such as pediatric, obstetric, cardiovascular, and trauma anesthesia. The clinical phase of the program is 18 months in length, and enables graduates to enter practice as proficient, well-equipped, doctorally-prepared anesthetists. Additionally, throughout their training, students are given ample opportunities to enhance non-clinical skills, such as leadership and research, with nationally-recognized faculty members.

Transitioning in 2011, the BCM GPNA now offers a post-master’s track for practicing anesthetists interested in obtaining their Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP). Over 24 months, the curriculum will focus on producing leaders in clinical practice, as well as, healthcare research, education, and policy. Graduates will embrace innovation, technology, and evidence-based approaches within a culture of life-long learning.

Physician Assistant program
Baylor College of Medicine is also home to a Physician Assistant (PA) program. Forty PA students are accepted each year. For PA students entering in 2004, the average GPA was 3.70 and the average GRE score was 1169 verbal/quantitative and 4.9 analytical. Baylor College of Medicine ranked 7th in the 2007 U.S. News and World Report rankings for Physician Assistant schools. The overall passing rate for all graduates of the PA Program on the Physician Assistant National Certifying Examination is 97 percent with a 100 percent pass rate for the past eight years.

Residency training
Baylor College of Medicine offers residency training in a wide variety of specialties. Notable departments at the college include the Department of Pediatrics, led until 2008 by world-renowned pediatrician Dr. Ralph Feigin and currently by Dr. Mark Kline, a world expert on pediatric HIV, and the Department of Surgery founded by Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, the world-renowned cardiothoracic surgeon.

Student housing
The Baylor College of Medicine does not operate student housing. Because Baylor students are affiliated with the Texas Medical Center, they are eligible to live in the Favrot Tower Apartments. Minor dependent residents of Favrot are zoned to Houston Independent School District schools. The schools are Roberts Elementary School, Ryan Middle School, and Lamar High School.

Hospital affiliation
BCM is affiliated with many of the hospitals that make the Texas Medical Center the largest medical center in the world. BCM's affiliations include:


 * Texas Children's Hospital
 * The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
 * The Methodist Hospital
 * St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital & The Texas Heart Institute
 * Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center
 * Ben Taub General Hospital
 * Memorial Hermann - The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research
 * Menninger Clinic

Cooperating Patient Care Institutions:


 * Community Health Centers
 * Cullen Bayou Place
 * DePelchin Children's Center
 * Houston Child Guidance Center
 * Jewish Family Service Cancer Center
 * Kelsey-Seybold Clinic
 * Park Plaza Hospital
 * Quentin Mease Hospital
 * Seven Acres Jewish Geriatric Center
 * Houston Shriners Hospital (orthopedic)
 * Thomas Street AIDS Clinic
 * Woman's Hospital of Texas

Methodist Hospital had been Baylor's primary private teaching hospital for many decades. Baylor and Methodist dissolved some of their connections during a conflict in 2004 for reasons that seem to revolve around a planned ambulatory care center and ownership of the physicians' private practices. Methodist and Baylor retain a number of important affiliations, however, and Baylor medical students and residents continue to rotate through The Methodist Hospital. In the meantime, Baylor has strengthened its ties to other Medical Center hospitals like MD Anderson and St. Luke's, leading, for example, to the recent decision for MD Anderson's chairman of neurosurgery to also be chair at Baylor.

Baylor initiated plans to build its own hospital and clinic after ties with Methodist Hospital were dissolved. The Baylor Clinic is currently in operation and the 600 bed not-for-profit hospital's exteriors are complete but construction is currently suspended on the interiors due to economic concerns. The hospital will be located in Texas Medical Center on the McNair Campus of Baylor College of Medicine near Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Old Spanish Trail. Once the Hospital building is fully complete the Baylor Clinic will move from its current location to the McNair Campus.

Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative
The Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative (BIPAI) (http://bayloraids.org) at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital was established in 1996, and has rapidly become the world's largest university-based program dedicated to global pediatric and family HIV/AIDS care and treatment, health professional training and clinical research. Baylor constructed and opened the world's two largest centers for the care and treatment of HIV-infected children and families, the Romanian-American Children's Center in Constanta, Romania in 2001, and the Botswana-Baylor Children's Clinical Center of Excellence in Gaborone, Botswana in 2003. These centers have transformed the care and treatment of pediatric HIV/AIDS in the two countries, making Romania and Botswana two of a precious few countries worldwide where children are at least proportionately represented among those accessing HIV/AIDS care and treatment. BIPAI has replicated these successes in Uganda, Lesotho, Swaziland, Malawi, and Tanzania, where it has entered into partnership with the Ministries of Health to scale up pediatric HIV/AIDS care and treatment, and build and open new Children's Clinical Centers of Excellence.

BIPAI also has created the Pediatric AIDS Corps; a model program to place up to 250 American pediatricians and infectious disease specialists in its African centers to vastly expand capacity for pediatric HIV/AIDS care and treatment and health professional training. Major funders of BIPAI's activities include NIH, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, Abbott Laboratories, and numerous private and corporate foundations.

Notable physicians and researchers

 * Bert W. O'Malley &mdash; National Medal of Science winner, member National Academy of Sciences for advances in hormone action and gene expression
 * Salih Wakil, Ph. D &mdash; member National Academy of Sciences for discoveries regarding fatty acids synthesis
 * Paul Randall Harrington &mdash; inventor of the Harrington Rod, a device used to treat scoliosis.
 * Huda Zoghbi &mdash; Member of National Academy of Sciences; Investigator of Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Award-winning neuropsychiatrist; Director of Jan and Duncan Neurological Research Institute, Houston, Texas.
 * John Barnhill &mdash; Chief of the Consultation-Liaison Service at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
 * Hugo Bellen &mdash; noted developmental biologist; Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
 * Michael Glyn Brown (graduate of academic program, former hand surgeon)
 * Lars Georg Svensson &mdash; Director of the Aorta Center and Director of the Marfan Syndrom and Connective Tissue Disorder Clinic and Cleveland Clinic
 * Malcolm Brenner Ph.D., &mdash; Director, Center for Cell and Gene Therapy
 * William "Bill" R. Brinkley; American cell biologist and early contributor to discovery of mitotic spindle apparatus
 * Mohammad Athari, M.D. &mdash; Neurologist and founder of Universal MRI and Diagnostics, Inc.
 * Leroy Chiao, Astronaut and Commander of the International Space Station, Chairman of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute User Panel, and Co-investigator for the Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity Project
 * C. Thomas Caskey &mdash; American internist and prominent medical geneticist and biomedical entrepreneur.
 * David C. Hilmers &mdash; Former astronaut and current professor of medicine and pediatrics.
 * Michael E. DeBakey &mdash; award-winning cardiovascular surgeon
 * David Eagleman &mdash; neuroscientist and writer
 * Mark Kline, M.D &mdash; Physician-in-Chief of Texas Children's Hospital; Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics; President of the Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative (BIPAI)
 * William J. Klish &mdash; influential pediatrician
 * H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. &mdash; American philosopher
 * Ralph Feigin &mdash; Former President, Baylor College of Medicine; Chief of Pediatrics and President of Texas Children's Hospital; author, Textbook of Pediatric Infectious Diseases
 * Roger Guillemin &mdash; Nobel Prize laureate in Medicine (1977)
 * Read Montague &mdash; Director of the College's Human Neuroimaging Laboratory
 * Andrew W. Schally &mdash; Nobel Prize laureate in Medicine (1977)
 * Peter G. Traber &mdash; President Emeritus of Baylor College of Medicine.
 * Denton Cooley &mdash; founder of the Texas Heart Institute and world-renowned cardiovascular surgeon. Carried out the first successful implantation of an artificial heart.
 * O. H. Frazier &mdash; Heart surgeon who has performed over 1,000 transplants.
 * Michael J. Reardon &mdash; Internationally known heart surgeon who developed first successful cardiac auto transplantation for cardiac sarcoma.
 * F. Charles Brunicardi, MD &mdash; Chair, DeBakey Department of Surgery and Editor-in-Chief of Schwartz's Principles of Surgery
 * Brendan H Lee, MD, PhD &mdash; Professor, Molecular and Human Genetics, Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
 * James Lovelock &mdash; Former professor, chemist, proponent of Gaia hypothesis.
 * Richard A. Gibbs, PhD &mdash; pioneering geneticist.
 * Leslie A. Geddes, PhD &mdash; PhD, pioneering biomedical engineer and inventor.
 * Huntly D. Millar &mdash; founder and owner of Millar Instruments, Inc., worldwide distributor of catheter-tip pressure sensors.
 * David Poplack, MD &mdash; Director, Texas Children's Cancer Center, Professor of Pediatrics.
 * Lorraine Potocki, M.D. &mdash; Medical Geneticist and researcher, co-discoverer of the genetic disorder Potocki-Lupski syndrome (PTLS).
 * Arthur L. Beaudet, M.D. &mdash; Chairman of the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Miscellaneous
The male Asian elephant calf born to Shanti at the Houston Zoo on May 4, 2010 was named Baylor in honor of the college and their research on elephant herpesvirus.