The University of Virginia School of Medicine (UVA SOM or more commonly known as Virginia Medicine) is the graduate medical school of the University of Virginia. The school's facilities are on the University of Virginia grounds adjacent to Academical Village in Charlottesville, Virginia as well as a second campus located in Falls Church, Virginia.
Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, UVA SOM is the tenth oldest medical school in the United States. The School of Medicine confers Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees, and is closely associated with both the University of Virginia Health System and Inova Health System. Notable distinguished alumni include Walter Reed, Vivian Pinn, and many other leaders in medicine. The School is widely considered to be one of the most prestigious medical schools in the United States with many medical discoveries made on Grounds.
The UVA Health System's history can be traced to the original conception of the University of Virginia on August 1, 1818, whereupon Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and twenty-one other men first compiled a report for the Virginia State Legislature to determine a site, building plans, and courses for study for the University of Virginia. Acknowledging that clinical lectures and medical training were not available in Charlottesville at that time, Jefferson and his colleagues determined that the university should offer education in "the elements of medical science...with a history and explanation of all its successive theories from Hippocrates to the present day," as a way to train both prospective physicians, as well as those students with a more dilettante interest in medicine.
At the first meeting of the university's Board of Visitors in 1819, a School of Medicine was authorized. The School of Medicine â the 10th medical school in the U.S. â officially opened in March 1825 with a single professor, Dr. Robley Dunglison. Dunglison had been actively recruited by Thomas Jefferson, and had traveled from London to take up his new position.
Just weeks before Dunglison and his wife arrived in the United States, Jefferson had written to Joseph C. Cabell that an anatomical theater would be "indispensable to the school of anatomy," and that "there cannot be a single dissection until a proper theater is prepared giving an advantageous view of the operation to those within, and effectually excluding observation from without." This structure, which was eventually demolished in 1938, was one of the first of its kind in the entire United States, conceived and blueprinted by Jefferson himself, who pushed fervently for its construction up until the time of his death in 1825.
The University of Virginia School of Medicine graduated its first four students in 1828, and in 1832, became the first medical school in the United States to standardize the criteria for admission.
More than 75 years later, UVA opened its first hospital in March 1901 with 25 beds and three operating rooms. Just as medical education has been a part of UVA since its founding, so too has medical literature â the 8,000 books purchased by Jefferson to create the University Library included 710 books on the medical sciences. UVA's medical literature moved to the UVA Medical School building in 1929. Its current home was dedicated in April 1976.
In 2016, UVA announced a partnership with Inova Fairfax to establish a satellite campus at the flagship Inova hospital in Northern Virginia. This agreement also included the establishment of a personal genomics center and a collaboration between the cancer centers of the two entities.
The School of Medicine is affiliated with the University of Virginia Health System.
The UVA Hospital is a large tertiary care hospital with more than 500 beds, not including a 45-bed neonatal intensive care unit and 20-bed nursery. The Children's Hospital is served by the Newborn Emergency Transport System (NETS), which transports critically ill newborns and pediatrics from all over the surrounding area and states back to UVA. The hospital is a Level I trauma center and is accessible by ambulance as well as Pegasus, UVA Health System's air and ground transport service for critically ill and injured patients. As an academic medical center, patients at UVA are treated by physicians who are also faculty members at the UVA School of Medicine.
The Claude Moore Health Sciences Library opened in 2014 and serves the School of Medicine and the Health System. The library is located within the Medical Center.
From years 2016âÂÂ2019, UVA Hospital was named the number 1 hospital in Virginia.
UVA utilizes a unique "Next Generation" integrated curriculum that allows medical students to spend more time in the clinic by condensing the first 2 years of classes into 1.5 years. Uniquely, students enter Clerkship and take Step 1 and Step 2 together in their fourth year. UVA features accredited programs (via the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education) of resident and fellowship education in general, specialty, and subspecialty fields.
Upon matriculation, students are divided into one of four learning communities. Reed College, Hunter College, Dunglinson College, and Pinn College are each named after influential UVA SOM alumni.
UVA has many highly regarded departments with over 300 labs; laboratories are mainly housed in Medical Center in Pinn Hall, MR-4, MR-5, MR-6, and the West Complex (Hospital West).
In 1889, philanthropist Oliver Hazard Payne bequeathed a $100,000 grant to the medical school, to help establish laboratories of experimental medicine.
Founded in 1967, the Department of Perceptual Studies is unusual in that it is one of the few academic research groups in the field of "supernatural phenomena" with board-certified physicians and scientists at a respected university.
The faculty of the School of Medicine are recognized nationally and internationally. The faculty includes 15 elected members of the Institute of Medicine and National Academy of Sciences; three members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; 12 members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; five recipients of the Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award; four recipients of the Virginia Outstanding Scientist Award; and two recipients of the Virginia Life Achievement Award in Science.
In September of 2024, a letter of no confidence, signed by 128 faculty members and physicians, was raised against dean Melina Kibbe and CEO of UVA Health Craig Kent, demanding their ousting and replacement. The letter accused Kibbe and Kent of allowing "egregious acts" such as harassment of resident physicians, overcharging patients in favor of profit, and lavish spending on C-suite executives. The letter also asserts that Kibbe and Kent have been pressuring healthcare workers to not report concerns of patient safety, and more generally, that they have ushered in "a culture of fear and retaliation" within the school and health network.
In response to the letter, university president Jim Ryan wrote that "through some of their [the authors'] allegations, they have unfairly â and I trust unwittingly â cast a shadow over the great work of the entire health system and medical school.â The university brought in the law firm, Williams & Connolly, to conduct an investigation into the allegations.
The results of the investigation were not released, however, Kent resigned shortly after the conclusion of the investigation in March 2025. Kibbe resigned in July 2025 after being named as the new president at The University of Texas Health Science Center.
The University of Virginia School of Medicine is one of only 43 NIH funded MD/PhD programs in the country. The program director is Dr. Dean H. Kedes.
According to the handbook provided to all entering students: As such the program claims two founding dates: 1971 when the MSTP committee was first formed and 1977 when the first students matriculated.