U.S. News & World Report, in its 2021 edition of rankings, ranked Pritzker School of Medicine #24 in "Best Medical Schools: Primary Care" and #17 in "Best Medical Schools: Research".
History
Interest in opening a medical school at the University of Chicago began in 1898 when the university became affiliated with Rush Medical College while Chicago endeavored to establish funds for the construction of a medical school. The affiliation with Rush Medical College continued until 1942. In 1916, the university's Board of Trustees set aside $5.3 million for its development, but World War I delayed its construction until 1921. With construction complete in 1927, the school matriculated its first class of medical students. Following a $16 million gift from the Pritzker family of Chicago to the University of Chicago, the School of Medicine was renamed in their honor in 1968. Pritzker was the first medical school to hold the now international tradition of the white coat ceremony in 1989, which celebrates the students' transition and commitment to a lifelong career as a physician.
Admissions
For the entering Class of 2016–2017, 5,640 people applied and 719 interviewed for 88 spots in the class. Accepted applicants had a median GPA of 3.88 and median MCAT score of 520.
Sara Branham Matthews, PhD class of 1923, MD class of 1934, was an American microbiologist and physician best known for her research into the isolation and treatment of Neisseria meningitidis, a causative organism of meningitis.
David Bodian, class of 1937, American medical scientist whose work helped lay the groundwork for the eventual development of polio vaccines by combining neurological research with the study of the pathogenesis of polio.
Joseph Ransohoff, class of 1941, pioneer in the field of neurosurgery; founder of the first neurosurgical intensive care unit; chief of neurosurgery at N.Y.U. Medical Center
Robert M. Chanock, class of 1947, American pediatrician and virologist who made major contributions to the prevention and treatment of childhood respiratory infections.
Janet Rowley, class of 1948, American human geneticist and the first scientist to identify a chromosomal translocation as the cause of leukemia and other cancers.
Ernest Beutler, class of 1950, German-born American hematologist and biomedical scientist. He made important discoveries about the causes of a number of diseases, including anemias, Gaucher disease, disorders of iron metabolism and Tay–Sachs disease.
Bruce Beutler, class of 1981, American immunologist and geneticist. Together with Jules A. Hoffmann, he received one-half of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for "their discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity".
Anne Searls De Groot, class of 1983, co-founder and CEO/CSO of the immunoinformatics company EpiVax.
Todd Golub, class of 1989, Professor of Pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School, the Charles A. Dana Investigator in Human Cancer Genetics at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and a founding member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
