Wednesday, May 11 — America’s first medical college was established early this month in 1765. Students at the College of Philadelphia — now the University of Pennsylvania — were able to enroll in “anatomical lectures” and a class about “the theory and practice of physik.” The faculty modeled the instruction after the style of European predecessors. They supplemented their instruction with observation and practice at nearby Pennsylvania Hospital, which was founded in 1751 by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Bond. The addition of these courses to the college’s curriculum made Penn, in a technical sense, America’s first university as well. Across the U.S. today, there are about 855,000 physicians and surgeons working out of some 220,000 offices and more than 5,400 hospitals.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
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