Important Events in UT Southwestern Medical Center’s History

Since its establishment in 1943, UT Southwestern Medical Center has distinguished itself in the areas of medical education, treatment and research. The medical center has three degree-granting institutions – UT Southwestern Medical School, UT Southwestern Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and UT Southwestern School of Health Professions – which train nearly 4,400 medical, graduate and allied health students, residents and postdoctoral fellows each year. Our faculty and residents provide care to nearly 97,000 hospitalized patients and oversee 1.8 million outpatient visits annually. Ongoing support from federal agencies, foundations, individuals and corporations provide more than $400 million per year to fund about 3,500 research projects. The medical center has four Nobel laureates, three of whom are active faculty members. With about 10,400 employees, 10.8 million square feet of available space, and an operating budget of almost $1.5 billion, UT Southwestern is one of Dallas’ biggest employers.

Some of the landmark events that have shaped UT Southwestern Medical Center’s history include:

2009

Former Texas Gov. Bill Clements donates $100 million to UT Southwestern Medical Center. It is the largest single donation in the institution’s history and is given through the Southwestern Medical Foundation.

UT Southwestern surgeons have transplanted more than 1,700 kidneys since performing the first kidney transplant in Texas in the 1960s.

2008

UT System Board of Regents name Harvard University professor and Partners HealthCare academic leader Dr. Daniel K. Podolsky the third president of UT Southwestern.

UT Southwestern surgeons complete the first single-incision Lap-Band weight-loss surgery in Texas. With SILS, or single-incision laparoscopic surgery, surgeons make one incision instead of several through the abdominal wall. UT Southwestern bariatric specialists have performed approximately 4,000 traditional Lap Band procedures and have trained more than 100 surgeons from across the U.S.

2007

UT Southwestern’s Innovations in Medicine campaign, which was officially launched in 2002, comes to a close. The most ambitious and successful fundraising effort in Dallas history, the campaign includes more than 700 generous donors and raises almost $773 million. The largest donors to the campaign include Mr. and Mrs. Harold Simmons/Harold Simmons Foundation/Simmons Family Foundation ($125 million), the Perot Foundation, the T. Boone Pickens Foundation and an anonymous donor (more than $50 million each), the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Bulah M. Luse Trust (more than $25 million each).

UT Southwestern administrators, faculty and staff members join UT System dignitaries in the dedication of the Bill and Rita Clements Advanced Medical Imaging Building – a state-of-the-art facility which houses one of the few 7 Tesla magnets in the world. The facility’s cutting-edge scientific tools enable researchers to peer deep inside the human body and learn more about the disease processes of diabetes, Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia and many others.

The National Institutes of Health awards UT Southwestern a $22 million grant to enhance the medical center’s efforts to attack obesity from every angle, from studying fat cells to developing medicines. The award is one of nine interdisciplinary research consortia sponsored by the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. These groups seek to solve difficult problems by blending approaches from multiple biomedical research disciplines. UT Southwestern’s group is the only one focused on obesity.

Gov. Rick Perry selected UT Southwestern and UT M.D. Anderson Cancer Center to be the two sites at which he signed House Bill 14, the historic cancer bill creating one of the largest cancer research initiatives in the nation. Gov. Perry’s signature culminated a push to create the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, a multibillion cancer research trust fund.

2006

Dr. Xiaodong Wang is awarded the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine. Dr. Wang receives the international award, sometimes referred to as the “Nobel Prize of the East,” from the Hong Kong-based Shaw Prize Foundation for his discovery of the biochemical basis of programmed cell death, a vital process that balances cell birth and defends against cancer.

UT Southwestern-based research indicates that lowering “bad” blood cholesterol earlier in life, even by a modest amount, confers substantial protection from coronary heart disease. The findings, based on 15 years of data tracking more than 12,000 multiethnic subjects and reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that people with genetic variations affording them lower low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in their blood from birth were significantly less likely to develop coronary heart disease later in life than those without the variations.

The Outpatient Building, the first step in an ambitious plan to rebuild the medical center’s clinical infrastructure, opens. The West Campus building houses world-class facilities that include a surgical center, radiology imaging services and overnight guest suites in addition to clinics.

Orthopaedic surgeons at UT Southwestern are the first in North Texas to use knee implants specifically designed to fit a woman's anatomy.

2005

St. Paul and Zale Lipshy facilities are consolidated and become the UT Southwestern University Hospitals, securing UT Southwestern’s place among the nation’s top-tier academic medical centers. In 2000, UT Southwestern had acquired assets and management of St. Paul Medical Center, which was renamed St. Paul University Hospital.

Using a robotic treadmill, UT Southwestern scientists are the first to demonstrate that locomotor training can promote activation in the parts of the brain involved in walking in spinal-cord injury patients.

The first human clinical trial of a recombinant vaccine for the deadly toxin ricin – a potential bioterror threat – is completed at UT Southwestern, and the results indicate the vaccine is safe and effective in eliciting ricin-neutralizing antibodies. The year-long pilot study is led by Dr. Ellen Vitetta, director of the Cancer Immunobiology Center.

2004

UT Southwestern graduate Dr. Linda Buck is awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, becoming the first alumnus of the Southwestern Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences to win the prize.

2002

UT Southwestern’s Innovations in Medicine campaign to raise $450 million for biomedical research and clinical advances is launched. The priorities of the campaign include biomedical research, biotechnology and enhanced delivery of clinical care and service. The next year, a gift of $50 million from an anonymous donor – at that time the largest gift in the medical center’s history and the largest single philanthropic donation ever to a Dallas organization – is made and the goal is adjusted to $500 million to include the Clinical Services Initiative, a program aimed at making individuals' interactions with the health-care system humane and patient-friendly.

2001

The largest study on treatments for depression, led by UT Southwestern, begins. The $35 million, six-year study – designated STAR*D (Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression) and funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) – is the first benchmark investigation to implement specific step-by-step medication treatment guidelines based on patients’ symptoms and medication side effects. This gives clinicians a “measurement-based care” approach to delivering high-quality treatment for depression.

The Institute for Innovations in Medical Technologies is created with funds appropriated by the Texas Legislature.

1999

UT Southwestern is selected from among the nation’s top academic medical centers to launch a $24 million clinical research center to study and develop new ways to reduce death from cardiovascular disease. The award, the largest peer-reviewed grant ever made to the institution, establishes the Donald W. Reynolds Cardiovascular Clinical Research Center.

The Moncrief Cancer Center in Fort Worth, with facility and endowment assets of $50 million, is donated to UT Southwestern.

UT Southwestern surgeons complete the first laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery in Texas. In 2001 they are the first in the Dallas area approved to perform the Lap Band procedure.

The medical center acquires 60 acres from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and 25 additional acres from other owners, to augment the North Campus.

1997

The Endowed Scholars Program in Medical Science, with $52 million in support, is created to provide start-up funds for outstanding young researchers.

1996

UT Southwestern is one of only seven centers in the U.S. to receive a SPORE (Specialized Program of Research Excellence) grant from the National Institutes of Health for lung-cancer research.

The Department of Plastic Surgery is established, one of first in an academic medical center in the country.

1995-1999

UT Southwestern is ranked among the top five American institutions in a study measuring the impact of federally funded universities.

1995

UT Southwestern’s Fund for Molecular Research drive ends. The fundraising campaign, begun in 1992, raises $165 million. At the time it was the largest fundraising effort for research ever undertaken by an American medical school and the largest private-donor campaign ever conducted in Dallas. The largest donors to the campaign include the Excellence in Education Foundation ($30 million), Nancy Hamon, an anonymous donor ($25 million each) and Sarah and Charles Seay ($21 million).

UT Southwestern vascular surgeons perform the first aortic stent graft in the southwestern U.S.

1994

Dr. Alfred Gilman receives the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his discovery of G proteins, research that has led to a more complete understanding of how cells receive signals and respond to external stimuli.

1991

Vascular surgeons at UT Southwestern perform the first deep vein reconstruction in the world.

NASA payload specialist Dr. Drew Gaffney, a former cardiology fellow and faculty associate, was an associate professor of medicine at UT Southwestern before flying aboard Spacelab Life Sciences-1, the first Spacelab mission dedicated to biomedical studies.

1990

The Mary Nell and Ralph B. Rogers Magnetic Resonance Center, the first facility on the North Campus, officially opens.

The medical center concludes a $21 million campaign to establish endowed Distinguished Chairs for senior research leaders.

1989

Zale Lipshy University Hospital, with $35 million in philanthropic support, opens as a referral facility for UT Southwestern physicians.

1988

Dr. Johann Deisenhofer receives the Nobel Prize in chemistry for using X-ray crystallography to describe the 3-D structure of a protein molecule. This structure helped explain the process of photosynthesis.

UT Southwestern surgeons complete the first pediatric heart transplant in Dallas.

The Alzheimer’s Disease Center opens. It is the only NIH-funded comprehensive center in Texas.

1987

The UT System Board of Regents changes the name of the health sciences center to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, reflecting its origins as Southwestern Medical School.

UT Southwestern surgeons perform their 1,000^th kidney transplant.

UT Southwestern receives 30 acres of land from the MacArthur Foundation to begin a new expansion.

1986

Dr. Kern Wildenthal, dean of the medical school since 1980, is appointed the second president of the institution.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute selects UT Southwestern to house one of its 12 principal laboratories nationwide. One of the nation’s largest philanthropies, HHMI invested more than $8 billion over the years for the support, training and education of the country’s most creative and promising scientists. There are currently 13 HHMI investigators at UT Southwestern.

1985

Dr. Michael Brown and Dr. Joseph Goldstein receive the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their discovery of the basic mechanisms of cholesterol metabolism. Their findings led to the development of the cholesterol-lowering statin drugs.

1981

UT Southwestern establishes the first Center for Human Nutrition in an American medical school.

1979

Dr. Ronald W. Estabrook, chairman of biochemistry, becomes the first faculty member to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences. There are now 18 members of the prestigious organizations serving on the UT Southwestern faculty.

1975

Graduation ceremonies are conducted on the Eugene McDermott Plaza for the first time as 133 students, the largest class to date, graduate.

1972

Southwestern Medical School officially reorganizes and is renamed the University of Texas Health Science Center at Dallas, with Dr. Charles Sprague as president. Components of the comprehensive center included Southwestern Medical School, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and the Allied Health Sciences School.

1971

120 first-year medical students begin classes. The increased enrollment is the first incremental step toward doubling medical school enrollment by 1975.

1968

UT Southwestern surgeons perform the first heart transplant on a female. It’s the first in Dallas and the 21^st in the world.

1967

Newly appointed dean and professor of internal medicine Dr. Charles Sprague launches a $40 million building project. Private philanthropy, supplemented by state and federal support, changes the face of the institution.

1965

UT System Board of Regents approves increasing enrollment from 400 to 800 medical students.

1963

UT Southwestern and Parkland Memorial Hospital staffs respond when President John F. Kennedy and Texas Gov. John Connally are brought to Parkland after being shot while their motorcade travels through downtown Dallas.

1962

The National Institutes of Health awards its first general research support grant to UT Southwestern. By the next year, the medical school has 250 research projects involving 135 faculty members and more than 200 technical assistants.

The Regional Burn Center at Parkland Memorial Hospital is established by Southwestern physicians, who will conduct research that dramatically reduces burn mortality. Physicians in the division of burn, trauma and critical care currently treat about 1,000 burn patients every year.

1959

Full-time faculty increases to 100.

1958

Clinical departments move from old shacks to the new clinical science building.

1955

The medical school’s first permanent building, the Cary Building of Basic Science, opens.

1954

The center’s name changes to The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School.

1953

137 acres on Harry Hines Boulevard are purchased from the federal government to accommodate the anticipated growth of the medical school. The next year, the Texas legislature appropriates $3.5 million for clinical and basic science buildings, the first permanent structures for the institution.

1952

Dr. Donald Seldin is appointed the first chairman of medicine.

1949

Southwestern Medical Foundation gives Southwestern Medical College to the UT System.

1946

Dallas philanthropist Karl Hoblitzelle, founder of the Interstate Theater Chain, donates 62 acres of land adjacent to the proposed site of the new Parkland Hospital to Southwestern Medical Foundation.

Brig. Gen. W. Lee Hart is named the college’s first full-time dean.

1943

The Foundation formally establishes Southwestern Medical College as the nation’s 68th medical school. Classes are held at Spence Middle School before moving in September to temporary, prefabricated Army barracks. Seventeen full-time faculty members and 200 students start that first year.

1939

Dr. E.H. Cary, with support from Dallas’ major financial and civic leaders, establishes the Southwestern Medical Foundation.