SUNY Downstate Medical Center

In 1860, the nation�s first college-hospital was founded in Brooklyn. Initially called the Long Island College Hospital, Collegiate Division, this innovative institution was the first to bring controversial, cuttingedge methods of teaching to the study of medicine in the United States. Until this time, medical students had been taught exclusively in schools, rarely leaving the lecture hall for first-hand experience. With the belief that medical instruction should be brought to the hospital bedsi