About UMass Chan Medical School

The UMass Chan Medical School is one of five campuses of the University of Massachusetts. The medical school was created in 1962 by an act of the Massachusetts legislature and admitted it's first class in 1970. UMass Hospital opened in 1976, and merged with Memorial Hospital in 1998 to form UMass Memorial Health Care.

The school's residency programs are fiscally self-sustaining and receive no state funding. The faculty has grown to more than 570 full-time members and 1,000 voluntary faculty, primarily clinical practitioners at affiliated hospitals. Today the Medical Center has five main components: the medical school, the graduate schools of biomedical sciences and nursing, and the teaching hospitals and clinics.

The medical school has developed a strong academic reputation and currently ranks second in NIH funding to medical schools in New England, receiving approximately $117 million in NIH grants and more than $250 million annually in total research funding. UMass is consistently ranked among the top ten schools nationally in preparing graduates for careers in primary care.

UMass serves as a local, state, and regional resource, providing ongoing continuing education opportunities for physicians in practice, and maintaining strong community ties throughout Central New England. The wide-ranging research interests of the faculty are highly recognized and well funded by federal and private sources. A multicorporate biotechnology research center has developed next to the medical school, allowing collaborative research efforts for UMass faculty. The medical school provides a rich academic background for UMass Memorial's graduate medical education trainees.