McGill University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences

The Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences is one of the constituent faculties of McGill University. It was established in 1829 after the Montreal Medical Institution was incorporated into McGill College as the college's first faculty; it was the first medical faculty to be established in Canada. The Faculty awarded McGill's first degree, and Canada's first medical degree to William Leslie Logie in 1833.

There have been at least two Nobel Prize laureates who have completed their entire education at McGill University including MD at the McGill University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences including Andrew Schally (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1977) and David H. Hubel (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1981).

History

The Montreal Medical Institution was established in 1823 by four physicians, Andrew Fernando Holmes, John Stephenson, William Caldwell and William Robertson, all of whom had been trained at the University of Edinburgh Medical School, and were involved in the foundation of the Montreal General Hospital. In 1829 it was incorporated into McGill College as the new College's first faculty; it thus became the first Faculty of Medicine in Canada. A highly didactic approach to medical education called the "Edinburgh curriculum", which consisted of two six-month courses of basic science lectures and two years of "walking the wards" at The Montreal General Hospital, was instituted. From 1833 to 1877 the Faculty followed the pattern set by the University of Edinburgh and required graduating students to submit an 'inaugural dissertation' – a database of these is available.

Sir William Dawson, the principal of McGill, was instrumental in garnering resources for the faculty and pioneering contributions from Thomas Roddick, Francis Shepherd, George Ross and Sir William Osler helped to transform the Victorian era medical school into a leader in modern medical education. Osler graduated from the MDCM program at McGill University Faculty of Medicine in 1872, and co-founded the present-day Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1893.

In 1905, the Bishop's University Medical Faculty Montreal who established in Montreal in 1871 closed and amalgamated with McGill University to create the new McGill University Faculty of Medicine, where BU graduates such as Maude Abbott, one of the Canada's earliest female medical graduates transferred to work for McGill as the Curator of the McGill Medical Museum.

The McGill University Health Centre was part of a $2.355 billion Redevelopment Project on three sites – the Glen, the Montreal General and Lachine hospitals. A new $1.300 billion MUHC Glen site fully integrated super-hospital complex opened in 2015.

A new satellite campus for McGill Medicine for a French stream MD, CM program was established in 2020 for the Outaouais region with a graduating class size of 24 and total of 96 in the program. The establishment of the program is part of a $32.5-million construction project of the Groupe de médecine familiale universitaire (GMF-U) de Gatineau.

In September 2020, the Faculty of Medicine changed its name to the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences to reflect the growth of interprofessionalism and the diversity in the Faculty of Medicine.

Education

The faculty offers a four-year MDCM degree in medicine and surgery. The Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences also offers joint degree programs with other disciplines including business (M.D.-M.B.A.) and science/engineering (M.D.-Ph.D.). There is also an accelerated program for selected graduates of the Quebec college system (PRE-MED-ADM or MED-P) that combines one year of science curriculum with the four-year M.D., C.M. degrees.

It is closely affiliated with the McGill University Faculty of Dentistry. Students of dentistry receive instruction together with their medical student colleagues for the first 18 months of their professional training.

The faculty includes six schools: the School of Medicine, the Ingram School of Nursing, the School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, the School of Population & Global Health and the School of Biomedical Sciences. It also includes several research centres involved in studies on, for example, pain, neuroscience, and aging. Most of the non-clinical parts of the faculty are housed in the McIntyre Medical Sciences Building ("The Beer Can", “McMed”), situated on McGill's downtown campus on the south side of Mount Royal between Avenue des Pins and Avenue Docteur-Penfield.

The McGill University Faculty of Medicine was the first medical school in Canada to institute a joint MD-MBA program in 1997 in collaboration with the Desautels Faculty of Management. This program allowed students to complete both degrees in five years.

Affiliations

McGill University Health Centre

• Glen site
  • Royal Victoria Hospital
  • Montreal Children's Hospital
  • Montreal Chest Institute
• Montreal General Hospital
  • Allan Memorial Institute (contains MGH's outpatient psychiatry)
• Montreal Neurological Hospital
• Hôpital de Lachine

McGill affiliate hospitals

• Lakeshore General Hospital
• Jewish General Hospital
• St. Mary's Hospital
• Douglas Mental Health University Institute
• Shriners Hospital for Children
• Hôpital de Gatineau – Groupe de médecine de famille universitaire (GMF-U) de Gatineau
• Jewish Rehabilitation Hospital (JRH)
• Mount Sinai Hospital Montreal

Reputation

McGill's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences has a national and international reputation with a list of faculty and alumni, many of whom were pioneers in their respective fields. It is also ranked as the number 1 medical school nationally in Canada by Maclean's for 19 straight years (including the most recent ranking for 2024). McGill's Medical School has also consistently ranked in the top medical schools worldwide and ranked 18th worldwide on the 2024 QS World University Ranking of top medical schools world-wide. Particularly, among McGill University's renowned reputation of Rhodes Scholars, McGill's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences has also produced a number of Rhodes Scholars (Cecil James Falconer Parsons, Munroe Bourne, Douglas George Cameron, Alan G. Kendall, Robert Murray Mundle, John Doehu Stubbs, Geoffrey E. Dougherty, Brian James Ward, Lesley Fellows, Anne Andermann, Astrid-Christoffersen-Deb, Aleksandra Leligdowicz, Benjamin Mappin-Kasirer, Alexander Lachapelle), including one in the recent 2018 cohort. For medical school students entering in fall 2020, the mean four-year undergraduate GPA was 3.87 (excluding graduate GPA), and the mean MCAT score was 32.1 (85th–88th percentile).

Admissions to the McGill Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences M.D., C.M. program are highly competitive with an acceptance rate of 5.7% for the Class of 2026.

The Department of Anatomy and Physiology at McGill University ranked 3rd globally in the 2017 QS World University Rankings after Oxford University and Cambridge.

Harry Houdini incident

In October 1926, renowned magician Harry Houdini was giving a lecture on exposed mediums and spiritualists at McGill University and had invited medical students to his dressing room at Montreal's Princess Theatre. J. Gordon Whitehead, a medical student and boxer, had asked Houdini if he could take a sudden punch to the stomach, as had rumoured to be the case; Houdini received several unexpected punches. Feeling ill later that evening and after refusing medical treatment, Houdini was diagnosed with acute appendicitis a couple of days later and died on October 31, 1926. It remains a controversy whether Houdini died as a result of the punches or was simply unaware of a current appendicitis prior, and Whitehead was never charged.

Notable faculty and alumni

• Maude Abbott — One of Canada's earliest female medical graduates, international expert on congenital heart disease, namesake of Maude Abbott Medical Museum Maude Abbott received her M.D. C.M. degree from Bishop's College in 1894 as McGill did not then admit females to study medicine. Bishop's College Medical School was absorbed by McGill in 1905.
• Bernard Nathanson M.D., C.M. 1949 — obstetrician/gynecologist
• Victor Dzau M.D., C.M. 1972 — president of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, former president and CEO of Duke University Medical Center
• Daniel Borsuk O.Q., B.Sc. 2000, M.D., C.M. 2006, M.B.A. 2006 — performed first face transplant in Canada
• Thomas Chang O.C., M.D., C.M. (1961), Ph.D., FRCP(C), FRS(C) — pioneer in biomedical engineering, “Father of Artificial Cells”
• George Edward Bomberry M.D., C.M. 1875 First indigenous graduate of McGill University. Bomberry, a hereditary chief of the Cayuga (Gayogohó:nợ), was born on the Tuscarora Reserve on April 14, 1849. He died on January 29, 1879.
• Robert Thirsk O.C., O.B.C., M.D., C.M. (1982), M.S., M.B.A. — Canadian engineer and physician, astronaut, and chancellor emeritus University of Calgary.
• Joannie Rochette M.D., C.M. 2020 — medal-winning Olympic figure skater
• E. Fuller Torrey M.D., C.M. 1963 — psychiatrist and schizophrenia researcher, founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center
• Maurice Brodie M.D., C.M. 1928 — polio researcher, who developed the polio vaccine in 1935
• Jack Wright M.D., C.M. 1928, — internationally top-ranked tennis star, winner of three Canadian Open men's singles titles and four doubles titles
• Mark Cohen M.D., C.M. 1992 — ophthalmologist, laser eye surgeon and co-founder of LASIK MD
• Avi Wallerstein — ophthalmologist, laser eye surgeon and co-founder of LASIK MD
• Charles Scriver M.D., C.M. 1955 — Canadian pediatrician and biochemical geneticist
• Dafydd Williams O.C., O.Ont., M.D., C.M. 1983, M.S., M.B.A. — a Canadian physician, public speaker, CEO, author and multi-mission astronaut.
• David R. Boyd M.D., C.M. 1963, — trauma surgeon, and developer of Regional Trauma Emergency Medical Services (EMS).
• Charles R. Drew M.D., C.M. 1933 — father of modern blood-banking; namesake of Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science; founding medical director of the Red Cross Blood Bank in the United States
• Richard Goldbloom O.C., O.N.S., M.D., C.M. 1949 — pediatrician, chancellor of Dalhousie University 1986–2004
• Paul Bruce Beeson M.D., C.M. 1933 — professor of medicine, specializing in infectious diseases; discoverer of interleukin-1
• Ian Stevenson M.D., C.M. 1943 — Canadian-born U.S. psychiatrist
• Ken Evoy M.D., C.M. 1979 — Emergency physician, entrepreneur, founder and chairman of the board of SiteSell
• William Wright M.D. 1848 — first person of colour to earn a medical degree in Canada
• Laurent Duvernay-Tardif M.D., C.M. 2018 — offensive guard for the NFL's New York Jets
• Phil Gold, B.Sc. 1957, M.Sc. 1961, M.D., C.M. 1961, Ph.D. 1965 — physician, scientist, and professor, discoverer of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), the first biomarker for cancer
• Haile Debas M.D., C.M. 1963 — Dean of the UCSF School of Medicine from 1993 to 2003
• Phil Edwards, M.D., C.M. 1936 — "Man of Bronze", Canada's most-decorated Olympian for many years, and expert in tropical diseases
• David Goltzman, B.Sc. 1966, M.D., C.M. 1968 — physician, scientist, and professor
• Noni MacDonald, pediatric infectious diseases expert, former Dean of Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine 1999–2003 and first woman in Canada to be named Dean of a medical school.
• Vivek Goel, M.D., C.M. 1984 — president and vice-chancellor of the University of Waterloo
• Katherine O'Brien, M.D., C.M. 1988 — infectious disease expert; Director of the World Health Organization's Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals
• Frederick Lowy, M.D., C.M. 1959 — former President and Vice-Chancellor of Concordia University
• Andrew Fernando Holmes — first dean and co-founder of McGill College Medical Faculty. Holmes received his medical degree from Edinburgh University in 1819; McGill awarded him an (honorary) An Eundem M.D. in 1843.
• Chi-Ming Chow M.D., C.M. 1990 — – cardiologist and board member of the Heart and Stroke Foundation
• David Hunter Hubel B.Sc. 1947, M.D., C.M. 1951 — Nobel laureate in Physiology (1981)
• Joanne Liu M.D., C.M. — International President of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders)
• Colin MacLeod M.D., C.M. 1932 — Canadian-American geneticist, identified DNA as hereditary material in the body, Avery–MacLeod–McCarty experiment
• John Lancelot Todd B.A. 1898, M.D., C.M. 1900 — parasitologist
• Claude Roy — one of the founding fathers of the field of paediatric gastroenterology
• Ronald Melzack Ph.D. 1954 — developed the McGill Pain Questionnaire
• Jack Wennberg M.D., C.M. 1961 — pioneer in public health of medicine and founder of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice
• Eric Berne BSc 1931, M.D., C.M. 1935 — psychiatrist who created the theory of transactional analysis
• William Reginald Morse M.D., C.M. 1902 — one four founders of the West China Union University in Chengdu, Sichuan, in 1914; went on to become dean of the medical faculty
• Robert Murray – B.A., M.A., M.D., C.M. 1943 – Bacteriologist
• Clarke Fraser Ph.D. 1945, M.D., C.M. 1950 — pioneer in medical genetics
• Robert Benjamin Greenblatt M.D., C.M. 1932 — prominent endocrinologist, pioneered endocrinology as a specialty in medicine, known for the development of the sequential oral contraceptive pill and the oral fertility pill
• Perry Rosenthal M.D., C.M. 1958 — professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School and developer of the first gas-permeable scleral contact lens
• William Feindel M.D., C.M. 1945 — neurosurgeon and neuroscientist
• Francis Alexander Caron Scrimger M.D., C.M. 1905 — Lieutenant Colonel in the Canadian Army recipient of the Victoria Cross
• Cara Tannenbaum M.D., C.M. 1994 — geriatric medicine physician and researcher
• T. Wesley Mills M.D., C.M. 1878 — physician, Canada's first professional physiologist
• Mark Wainberg O.C., O.Q., B.Sc. 1966 — HIV/AIDS researcher, discoverer of lamivudine, Director of the McGill University AIDS Centre,
• Santa J. Ono Ph.D. 1991 — immunologist and eye researcher, President & Vice-Chancellor University of British Columbia
• William Osler M.D., C.M. 1872 — professor, medical pioneer, developed bedside teaching, one of the four founders of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
• Betty Price M.D., C.M. 1980 — anesthesiologist and American politician/member of the Georgia House of Representatives
• Edward Llewellyn-Thomas M.D., C.M. 1955 — English scientist, university professor and science fiction author
• Rocke Robertson B.Sc. 1932, M.D., C.M. 1936 — physician
• William Henry Drummond — Irish-born Canadian poet, physician. Drummond actually failed his medical degree at McGill but received his M.D.C.M. from Bishop's College. When Bishop's merged with McGill he, like several other professors there, received an Ad Eundem M.D.C.M. degree from McGill in 1905.
• Albert Ernest Forsythe M.D., C.M. 1930 — physician and pioneer aviator
• Harold Griffith M.D., C.M. 1922 — anaesthesiologist, pioneered the use of curare as a muscle relaxant, formed and was first President of World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists
• Alice Benjamin Res. OB/GYN 1978 — maternal-fetal medicine specialist and pioneer in the field; performed Canada's first successful diabetic renal transplant and pregnancy
• James Horace King M.D., C.M. 1895 — physician, Canadian senator, and governor and one of the leaders of the establishment of the American College of Surgeons
• Arnold Aberman O.C. B.Sc. 1965, M.D., C.M. 1967 — Dean of University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine 1992–1999, and instrumental founder/consulting dean of Northern Ontario School of Medicine
• Victor Goldbloom O.Q., O.C., M.D., C.M. 1945 — pediatrician, politician
• Franklin White M.D., C.M. 1969 — public health scientist
• Martin Henry Dawson M.D., C.M. 1923 — infectious disease researcher, first person in history to inject penicillin into a patient, 1940
• Walter Mackenzie — Canadian surgeon and academic, Dean of University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry 1959–1974
• John Thomas Finnie M.D., C.M. 1869 — physician and Quebec politician
• Philip Seeman M.D., C.M. 1960 — Canadian schizophrenia researcher and neuropharmacologist, known for his research on dopamine receptors
• Munroe Bourne M.D., C.M. 1940 — physician, Olympic medal-winning swimmer, Rhodes Scholar, Major in the Canadian Army
• George Genereux M.D., C.M. 1960 — diagnostic radiologist and Olympic gold medalist and inductee in the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame
• James John Edmund Guerin M.D., C.M. 1878 — politician, Mayor of Montreal
• Peter Macklem O.C., M.D., C.M. 1956 — cardio-pulmonary physician and researcher, founding director of the Meakins-Christie Laboratories
• Richard Margolese O.C., M.D., C.M. — surgeon, researcher and pioneer in treatment of breast cancers
• Cluny Macpherson M.D., C.M. 1901 — physician and inventor of the British Smoke Hood (an early gas mask)
• Thomas George Roddick M.D., C.M. 1868 — surgeon, politician and founder of the Medical Council of Canada
• Andrew Schally Ph.D. 1957 — Nobel laureate in Physiology (1977)
• Vincenzo Di Nicola BA, 1976; Res. Psychiatry 1986 — Italian-Canadian psychologist, psychiatrist and family therapist, and philosopher of mind
• Maurice LeClair M.D., C.M. 1951 — Canadian physician, businessman, civil servant, and academic; Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the Université de Sherbrooke
• Arthur Vineberg B.Sc. 1924, M.D., C.M. 1928, Ph.D. 1933 — cardiac surgeon, pioneer of revascularization
• Antoine Hakim — Canadian engineer and physician, former CEO of the Canadian Stroke Network Neurology Residency at McGill.
• Sir Charles-Eugène-Napoléon Boucher de Boucherville M.D. 1843, Physician, politician, two-time Premier of Quebec
• R. Tait McKenzie M.D., C.M. 1892 — pioneer of modern physiotherapy
• David Saint-Jacques Res. FM 2007 — astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), astrophysicist, engineer, and a physician
• C. Miller Fisher described lacunar strokes and identified transient ischemic attacks as stroke precursors. Miller received his M.D. from the University of Toronto but had a Residency at McGill
• John S. Meyer M.D., C.M., M.S. — renowned American neurologist, founding professor and Chairman of Neurology at Wayne State University School of Medicine
• Marla Shapiro M.D., C.M. 1979 — primary medical consultant for CTV News
• Sherry Chou M.D., C.M. 2001 — neurologist and an Associate Professor of Neurology and Chief of Neurocritical Care at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
• Meyer Balter M.D., C.M. 1981 — pulmonologist, medical researcher, and professor
• Ken Croitoru, M.D., C.M. 1981 — gastroenterologist, medical researcher, and Crohn's disease expert
• Edward William Archibald M.D., C.M. 1896 Canada's first neurosurgeon, thoracic surgical pioneer
• Casey Albert Wood ophthalmologist and comparative zoologist. Casey Wood received his M.D.C.M. degree from Bishop's College. When Bishop's merged with McGill he, like several other professors there, received an Ad Eundem MD degree from McGill in 1906.

Current and past faculty members

• Madhukar Pai — expert on global health and epidemiology, specifically tuberculosis
• Nahum Sonenberg — Israeli-Canadian expert virologist, microbiologist, and biochemist, discoverer of mRNA 5' cap-binding protein
• Jonathan Meakins B.Sc. 1962 — surgeon, immunologist
• Heinz Lehmann Canadian psychiatrist, expert in treatment of schizophrenia the "father of modern psychopharmacology."
• Maurice McGregor South-African cardiologist
• Alan Evans neuroscientist, prominent researcher, expert in brain mapping
• David S Rosenblatt, M.D., C.M. 1970 — prominent medical geneticist, pediatrician; expert in the field of inborn errors of folate and vitamin B12 metabolism
• Michael Meaney — researcher and expert in biological psychiatry, neurology, and neurosurgery
• Brenda Milner Ph.D. 1952 — neuropsychologist, "founder of neuropsychology"
• Terence Coderre — researcher, pain expert, Harold Griffith Chair in Anaesthesia Research
• Judes Poirier — researcher, professor of Medicine and Psychiatry, director of the Molecular Neurobiology Unit at the Douglas Institute Research Centre
• Wilder Penfield — neurosurgery pioneer, first director of the Montreal Neurological Institute and Montreal Neurological Hospital
• David Goltzman, B.Sc. 1966, M.D., C.M. 1968 — physician, scientist, and professor
• George Karpati, nenowned Canadian neurologist and neuroscientist
• John J. M. Bergeron, cell biologist and biochemist, known for discovery of calnexin, endosomal signalling and organellar proteomics
• Charles Philippe Leblond — pioneer of cell biology and stem cell research
• Bernard Belleau — Canadian molecular pharmacologist best known for his role in the discovery of HIV drug Lamivudine
• Henry Friesen — Canadian endocrinologist, discoverer of human prolactin
• Hans Selye — Hungarian-Canadian endocrinologist
• James C. Hogg — expert in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
• Augusto Claudio Cuello — Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics and Charles E. Frosst/Merck Chair in Pharmacology
• Theodore Sourkes — Canadian biochemist and neuropsychopharmacologist, expert in Parkinson's disease
• Jonathan Campbell Meakins — Physician and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine 1941–1948, first President and Founder of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada
• Albert Aguayo — Canadian neurologist and assistant professor in the department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, former President International Brain Research Organization
• John J. R. Macleod — co-discoverer of insulin, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1923) laureate
• Rémi Quirion — first Chief Scientist of Quebec
• Lydia Giberson — Canadian-born psychiatrist and pioneering Metropolitan Life Insurance Company executive
• Marvin Kwitko — Canadian ophthalmologist who pioneered in cataract surgery and laser eye surgery
• Donald Ewen Cameron — Scottish-born psychiatrist known for his involvement in Project MKUltra
• Joseph B. Martin — Dean of the Harvard Medical School, former chair of neurology and neurosurgery
• Barbara E. Jones — Canadian neuroscientist, professor emerita in the McGill University Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery
• Gustavo Turecki — Canadian psychiatrist, suicidologist, neuroscientist
• Beverley Pearson Murphy — endocrinologist, developed a standard method for the measurement of thyroxine
• Frederick Andermann — neurologist and expert in epilepsy, namesake for Andermann syndrome
• Juda Hirsch Quastel — pioneer in neurochemistry and soil metabolism; Director of the McGill University-Montreal General Hospital Research Institute
• John Dossetor — Canadian physician and bioethicist who is notable for co–coordinating the first kidney transplant in Canada and the Commonwealth
• Ouida Ramón-Moliner — Canadian anaesthetist
• Joseph Morley Drake M.D., C.M. 1861 — British Physiologist
• Shyamala Gopalan — breast cancer researcher in the Faculty of Medicine and McGill-affiliated Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research; mother of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris

See also

• Osler Library of the History of Medicine
• McIntyre Medical Sciences Building
• McGill University Health Centre
• McGill University
• McGill University Life Sciences Research Complex

References

Further reading

• Joseph Hanaway and Richard Cruess. "McGill Medicine, Volume 1, 1829–1885. The First Half Century".
• Joseph Hanaway, Richard Cruess, and James Darragh. "McGill Medicine, Volume II, 1885–1936".

External links

• Medical Library Archives Collection, Osler Library Archives, McGill University. Collection of primary sources documenting the growth of the Medical Library at McGill University. Also includes announcements, university calendars, and directories related to the Faculty of Medicine