Celebrating the UM Centennial: The Evolution of the Miller School of Medicine
During the University of Miami’s centennial, we look back at some significant Miller School of Medicine history.
In 1952, as Florida’s first medical school opened its doors to its inaugural class of 28 students, including two women, cardiovascular disease was the leading cause of death in the United States. Scientists were just starting to look at blood pressure as a reliable predictor of heart problems.
The school has come a long way.
Its evolution, marked by a $100 million naming gift that established the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine in 2004, has mirrored—and in so many ways contributed to—the astounding advances of medicine in the intervening 73 years.
In that founding year, an agreement between the university and Miami-Dade County designated Jackson Memorial Hospital as the medical school’s teaching hospital, establishing a firm academic medicine footing that grew into the school that attracts significant National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding. Though as a student in 1957, Bernard Fogel, M.D. ’61, noted the school’s “unairconditioned, almost deplorable physical surroundings,” the man who would become the school’s dean also saw great promise in administration and faculty who “shared a vision … to make something happen from the ground up.”
Included in that vision was the 1962 creation of Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, which in 2024 was the No. 1 ranked eye hospital in the United States for the 23rd year, according to U.S. News & World Report. In 1964, Dr. William Harrington established the school’s first medical training program in Latin America.
Harrington was also influential in creating the M.D./Ph.D. program, the first dual-degree program for a school that now produces more dual-degree graduates than any medical school in the nation. The Comprehensive Cancer Center for the State of Florida followed in 1973 and carved out a trajectory of service that led to the establishment in 1992 of Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, now South Florida’s only National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center.
As the Miller School grew, so did its capacity to confront the most challenging diseases.
· The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis is one of the nation’s premier research programs for spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury.
· The Diabetes Research Institute is an international pioneer in cure-focused research, particularly in the field of islet cell transplantation.
· The DeWitt Daughtry Family Department of Surgery, named after the man who volunteered as an unpaid, part-time instructor of thoracic anatomy and physiology, is one of the largest and most impactful surgical programs in the U.S.
· John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics researchers have initiated groundbreaking genetic explorations, including identifying the gene responsible for early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
· NIH funding for the Desai Sethi Urology Institute has more than doubled since 2022, making it a top 15-funded institute.
The Miller School descendants of those early medical pioneers now use AI and large language models to advance research and improve patient outcomes in areas such as cancer diagnosis, cardiac computed tomography, telehealth, spinal surgery and more.
The school, which welcomed 235 students to its Class of 2028, including 141 women, continues its commitment to develop new generations of physicians and researchers who will shape the health care profession.
Tags: Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, DeWitt Daughtry Family Department of Surgery, Diabetes Research Institute, John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, WIlliam J. Harrington Medical Training Program