Perelman School of Medicine
medical school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
The Perelman School of Medicine, previously the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (Penn Med), is the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy league research university in Philadelphia. Founded in 1765, it is the oldest medical school in the United States.
As of 2024, the school has about 2,900 faculty members and nearly $1 billion in annual sponsored program awards.
History
18th century
The founding of a school of medicine was proposed by John Morgan, a graduate of the College of Philadelphia and the University of Edinburgh Medical School. After training in Edinburgh and other European cities, Morgan returned to Philadelphia in 1765. With fellow University of Edinburgh Medical School graduate William Shippen Jr., Morgan persuaded the college's trustees to found the first medical school in the original Thirteen Colonies.
Shortly before the medical school's creation, Morgan delivered an address titled "Upon the Institution of Medical Schools in America," addressed to the trustees and the citizens of Philadelphia, in which he expressed his desire for the new medical school to become a model institution, saying,
Perhaps this medical institution, the first of its kind in America, though small in its beginning, may receive a constant increase of strength, and annually exert new vigor. It may collect a number of young persons of more ordinary abilities, and so improve their knowledge as to spread its reputation to different parts. By sending these abroad duly qualified, or by exciting an emulation amongst men of parts and literature, it may give birth to other useful institutions of a similar nature, or occasional rise, by its example to numerous societies of different kinds, calculated to spread the light of knowledge through the whole American continent, wherever inhabited.
That autumn, students enrolled for "anatomical lectures" and a course on "the theory and practice of physick".
The public source identifies “Perelman School of Medicine” as medical school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Perelman, School and Medicine.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Perelman School of Medicine”, the useful work is to connect “medical school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4120165. VIAF identifies the subject as 167895499. The Library of Congress control number is n79066161. Authority coordinates are 39.948, -75.192. 4 of 7 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1765 and 2024.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Perelman School of Medicine”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Perelman School of Medicine primary sources, Perelman School of Medicine archive and Perelman research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Perelman School of Medicine”?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Perelman School of Medicine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.