Thomas Jefferson University

Thomas Jefferson University, private, state-aided, coeducational institution of higher education in Philadelphia, Pa., U.S. It has one of the largest independent medical schools in the United States. The university comprises Jefferson Medical College, the College of Health Professions, the College of Graduate Studies, and a teaching hospital, the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. Bachelor’s, master’s, Ph.D., and M.D. degrees are available in various medical disciplines; undergraduate students enter at the junior-year level. Affiliated with the university are the Jefferson Institute of Molecular Medicine, established in 1986, and the Jefferson Cancer Institute, founded in 1991. Total enrollment is approximately 2,600.

A group of physicians led by George McClellan created Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 1824. It served as the medical department of Jefferson College (then located in Canonsburg) until the state granted the medical college an independent charter in 1838. In 1877 it opened one of the first teaching hospitals in the United States. In 1969 Jefferson Medical College became part of greater Thomas Jefferson University as the colleges of Allied Health Services and of Graduate Studies were formed. That same year an undergraduate division, the College of Allied Health Sciences, was added.

Notable graduates include physicians Samuel David Gross, S. Weir Mitchell, Carlos J. Finlay, and William Williams Keen, as well as abolitionist Gamaliel Bailey. The university owns the painting The Gross Clinic (1875), by Thomas Eakins, which depicts Gross demonstrating techniques of surgery in front of a roomful of students.