A Brief History of The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences by G. David Anderson, University Archivist Page: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7

During World War II, Maj. Gen. Philip B. Fleming, a Federal Works administrator, saw in GW a much-needed answer to the shortage in medical facilities in the District of Columbia. Started as a public works project, the hospital was built by the Public Buildings Administration of the Federal Works Agency. When it opened in 1948, it was the most modern hospital in the nation's capital.

After World War II, the GW medical school, aided by a W. K. Kellogg Foundation Grant, expanded its curriculum to include postgraduate courses for doctors returning to private practice after military service. Dr. Walter A. Bloedorn, then president of the Association of American Medical Colleges and dean of the medical school, praised the hospital for its "outstanding facilities for the practice of its eminent staff and for the conduct of the University's distinguished postgraduate program."

Throughout the decades that followed World War II, GW medical school turned out class after class of well-qualified doctors, constantly revising its curriculum to keep pace with medicine's rapid advance. At the same time, the hospital was introducing the latest in medical equipment. In 1956, for example, GW purchased its first artificial kidney--a "Kolff Kidney" with the serial number "4"--to be used in acute treatments. In 1964, Professor Alvin Parrish (MD '45) opened Washington's first nonmilitary dialysis unit--beginning a tradition of progressive renal medicine that continues at GW today. In that same year, Dean John Parks and the GW faculty extensively revised the curriculum so that medical students would come into contact with patients earlier in their training. The Commonwealth Fund granted $400,000 to implement these changes--generosity equaled by the hospital's medical staff, who contributed nearly $500,000.

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