The University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson is the health sciences campus of the University of Mississippi. The Medical Center opened in 1955, but its beginnings date to 1903 when a two-year medical school was established on the parent campus in Oxford. In that era, certificate graduates went out of state to complete their doctor of medicine degrees.
Finally, in 1950, the Mississippi
Legislature -- by a one-vote margin -- enacted a law to create a four-year medical
school. On July 1, 1955, the state's new University Medical Center, or UMC as
it's commonly called, opened in Jackson, initially as a four-year medical school
with medical and graduate students, interns and residents. As it had in Oxford,
the School of Medicine offered both medical and graduate degree programs. The
campus included a teaching hospital and a library.
The Oxford campus' nursing department moved to the Medical Center in 1956 and it was granted school status in 1958. The School of Health Related Professions (SHRP) was added in 1971 and began offering baccalaureate curricula in 1973. The School of Dentistry was authorized in 1973, and its first students were admitted in 1975.
The Medical Center functions as a separately funded, semi-autonomous unit responsible to the chancellor of the University of Mississippi and, through him, to the constitutional Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning, which governs all eight state institutions of higher learning in Mississippi. The Medical Center's chief executive officer is the vice chancellor for health affairs.
The 1950 Mississippi Legislature enlarged and strengthened health professions education in Mississippi by enacting bills to establish and construct the Medical Center in Jackson as part of the University of Mississippi. The School of Medicine and graduate program enrolled students in 1955; the School of Nursing moved from the parent campus to Jackson in 1956; the School of Health Related Professions was established in 1971; and the School of Dentistry admitted its first class in 1975.
The University of Mississippi Medical Center unites the interrelated activities of education in the health sciences and accepts responsibility for teaching, research, service and leadership in this field. Its programs embrace training for physicians, dentists, nurses, and related members of the health team; graduate medical education; graduate dental education; graduate study in the health sciences; and the delivery of health care in the teaching hospitals and clinics. The Medical Center offers equal opportunity in all its programs and services regardless of race, sex, color, religion, marital status, age, national origin, and disability or veteran status.
The parent campus, the University of Mississippi chartered in 1844, has five areas of focus in its current Statement of Purpose. One of these is health. "The University will continue to provide the professional education of those who deliver and administer human health services and those who perform research aimed at improving the efficiency, the effectiveness, quality, and availability of health care. . . ."
Within this framework, the Medical Center's principal and continuing purpose is to accomplish the interrelated goals of health professional education for Mississippi: to teach in a superior manner the art and science of health care to students of exceptional promise and talent; to provide high quality treatment for all patients using the disciplines and specialties of modern health care; to lead the way to discoveries which will raise the health level of Mississippians and, indeed, all mankind; to foster dedication to life-long learning; to respond to community needs through continuing education and outreach programs that extend beyond the campus; and to recruit and retain the caliber of faculty necessary to meet these goals. The Medical Center fosters and protects an intellectual, emotional and challenging learning environment conducive to educational excellence in the health sciences, productive scientific investigation and exemplary patient care and moves toward the ultimate goals of improved health and well-being for the citizens of Mississippi, the region, the nation and the world.
Mississippi's population is culturally diverse. Most Mississippians trace their ancestral roots to the British Isles, the continent of Europe or the continent of Africa. The state also has many citizens of American Indian, Asian or Pacific Islander and Hispanic descent. In policy and practice, the institution encourages and actively recruits applicants from all segments of the state's population. The Medical Center is committed to maintaining an educational environment that fosters respect for and sensitivity to individual differences; promotes personal and professional development; and gives all students the opportunity to succeed, regardless of ethnicity, gender or socioeconomic status.
Medical Center graduates at all levels are expected to possess and to demonstrate the skills and knowledge necessary to practice their disciplines as competent health professionals. The Medical Center regularly uses appropriate external and internal measurement tools to assess the institution's effectiveness in training health professionals for Mississippi and to evaluate its programs for patient care, research, continuing education and outreach.
The expeditious growth of the Medical Center into a major academic health sciences center reflects the deep commitment of the State of Mississippi, the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning and the administration and faculty of the University of Mississippi Medical Center to the continuing fulfillment of this statement of purpose.
The Medical Center's School of Graduate Studies in the Health Sciences offers master's and Ph.D. degrees in the biomedical sciences, clinical health sciences and in the nursing sciences. The biomedical science degree fields are anatomy, biochemistry, microbiology, pathology, pharmacology and toxicology, physiology and biophysics, and preventive medicine. A master of science degree is offered in maternal-fetal medicine.
Students in the Medical Center's School of Medicine prepare
for the medical degree (M.D.) and resident physicians train for specialty practice
in about 25 postgraduate areas. The school also offers a residency in clinical
psychology (12 months). 
Technical certificate programs
available through the medical school include radiologic technology (24 months)
and nuclear medicine technology (12 months). A combined doctor of medicine/doctor
of philosophy (M.D.-Ph.D.) degree program is open to exceptional students in
the School of Medicine.
The School of Dentistry offers the doctor of dental medicine degree (D.M.D.) and residency programs in general practice (12 months) and advanced education in general dentistry (12 months).
The School of Health Related Professions (SHRP) offers
bachelor of science curricula (B.S.) in clinical laboratory sciences, cytotechnology,
dental hygiene, health information management and occupational therapy; these
programs require two years of study on the UMC campus and two years of approved
courses elsewhere. 
SHRP also offers a professional,
entry-level master of physical therapy degree (M.P.T.) Emergency medical technicians
- paramedics - earn certificates in the school. The master's and doctor of philosophy
degrees in the clinical health sciences also are based in SHRP.
UMC's School of Nursing offers an upper division bachelor of science degree in nursing (B.S.N.) in which students take the first two years of approved college work at any accredited institution and spend their junior and senior years at the medical center in a concentrated nursing curriculum. An applicant for the bachelor's degree who already is a registered nurses (R.N.) may apply for advanced standing. The School of Nursing's graduate program offers the master of science in nursing degree (M.S.N.) while preparing for a career as a nurse clinician, nurse educator or nurse executive. The Ph.D. in nursing, also based in the School of Nursing, is a collaborative program between UMC and the University of Southern Mississippi.
The University of Mississippi Medical Center is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, Georgia 30033-4097: Telephone number 404-679-4501) to award degrees at the baccalaureate, master's and doctorate levels. The four-year course leading to the doctor of medicine degree is accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education. The School of Dentistry is accredited by the Commission on Dental Accreditation of the American Dental Association. School of Nursing programs are accredited by the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission and the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education. All educational programs in the School of Health Related Professions are accredited by the appropriate professional agency.
For more information about any educational program, contact the University of Mississippi Medical Center, Division of Student Services and Records, 2500 N. State St., Jackson, MS 39216-4505, or telephone (601) 984-1080.
Continuing education programs, ranging from one-day seminars
to month-long courses, attract as many as 8,000 health team registrants each
year. The Division of Continuing Health Professional Education coordinates courses
with UMC's schools.
Medical Center grants and contracts from outside agencies
totaled more than $19 million in 1999-2000. These sponsored programs fund: preceptorship
training for medical students at sites in rural Mississippi; programs to help
increase the number of minority health professionals; research on cardiac output;
the mechanisms of hypertension; the immune system; factors that increase our
risk for heart attack and stroke; the targeting of underserved rural areas with
health professionals; and a science mentorship program, called Base Pair, for
public high school students. The Jackson Heart Study -- a cooperative project
of the Medical Center, Tougaloo College and Jackson State University -- is the
largest study of cardiovascular disease in African-Americans ever undertaken
in the nation and will involve 6,500 area residents. The ACT (A Comprehensive
Tobacco) Center is a tobacco treatment and research center at Jackson Medical
Mall which was funded by a grant from the nonprofit Partnership for a Healthy
Mississippi to the Medical Center.
The University Hospitals and Clinics are the teaching hospitals for all Medical Center education programs and a 665-bed diagnostic and treatment referral center for the entire state. The hospital medical staffs are appointed from the Schools of Medicine and Dentistry. Inpatients total about 26,000 annually with more than 360,000 outpatient and emergency visits every year.
On the Medical Center
campus, the University Hospitals and Clinics includes the University Hospital,
Winfred L. Wiser Hospital for Women & Infants, Blair E. Batson Hospital for
Children and, for faculty practice, the University Medical Pavilion. One mile
west of campus, the Jackson Medical Mall houses the hospital's primary care
clinics, the ambulatory specialty clinics and the Jackson Heart Study offices.
The Medical Center also owns and operates the 84-bed University Hospital --
Holmes County in Lexington, Miss., and leases and operates the 60-bed University
Hospital-Nursing Home in Durant, Miss. The Medical Center is converting a 29-bed
general hospital it owns in Durant to a long-term care facility.
The University is the only hospital in the state designated as a level 1 trauma center. Specialized hospital services include: an interventional MRI; the only level 3 neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in the state; separate medical, surgical, cardiac, neuroscience and pediatric ICUs; a heart station for diagnosis and treatment of heart disease; a heart failure clinic; heart, kidney, cornea and bone marrow transplant programs; a comprehensive stroke unit; state-of-the-art radiological imaging systems; a sleep disorders laboratory; an in vitro fertilization program; and special pharmaceutical services.
The Sonny V. Montgomery Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, adjacent to the campus, is the Medical Center's principal teaching affiliate. Students also gain clinical experience at community hospitals throughout the state.
Total fall enrollment in 1999-2000 was 1780. Medical students numbered 378; 119 were dental students; 322 were nursing students; 316 were in health related professions; 146 were in the graduate programs; 453 were in post-graduate education, internships or fellowships; and 46 were in certificate training programs. Mississippi residents made up 84 percent of the student body. Thirty-two U.S. states and 34 foreign countries were represented in the remaining 16 percent of enrollment. Currently, the faculty totals 736.
The health sciences campus occupies a 164-acre tract of University-owned land in the heart of Jackson. The original eight-story building is now the nucleus of a major academic health sciences complex. Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Dentistry and Health Related Professions (SHRP) all have their own buildings on campus.
Between 1988 and the mid-1990s, five construction projects were completed: the University Medical Pavilion; the Ronald McDonald House, a hotel-like accommodation for families of pediatric patients; the Mississippi Children's Cancer Clinic, which houses all outpatient treatment facilities for pediatric hematology and oncology patients; a state-of-the-art laundry; and the Arthur C. Guyton Laboratory Research Building.
From 1997 to 1999, six new buildings
and two parking garages opened as part of a $211 million campus construction
program -- the largest expansion package in the history of higher education
in the state at the time. Funding came from self-generated revenue, private
donations and the Mississippi Legislature. The new Blair E. Batson Hospital
for Children opened in 1997. A new imaging center opened the same year, housing
state-of-the-art radiology facilities, including an interventional MRI. In 1999,
four major new buildings opened: the Winfred L. Wiser Hospital for Women & Infants,
the School of Health Related Professions, the expanded Christine L. Oglevee
Building housing the School of Nursing, and the Norman C. Nelson Student Union.
An acute care tower is currently under construction above the imaging center. The tower will house the medical, cardiac, neuroscience and surgical intensive care units as well as a bone marrow transplant unit. A heliport for UMC's emergency Air Care helicopter will go on the tower roof.
Construction on an adult tower, with an ambulatory surgery facility, is expected to begin in spring, 2001. The same year, construction is expected to begin on two additional stories atop the Batson Hospital for Children, which will include a pediatric surgical suite. When the adult tower is completed, all the beds in the original University Hospital will have been replaced.
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