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50 THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS
by Robert A. Schwartz, MD, MPH, NJMS professor and director, Dermatology, and member, 50th Anniversary Committee
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ifty years old, New Jersey
Medical School has firmly established its place on the map of the state—and the country. The first medical school to be founded in New Jersey, its launching was heralded throughout the state, which had long needed a program to educate physicians with strong ties to New Jersey who would likely stay in the Garden State to practice. Among its founders were leaders at the Jersey City Medical Center, Seton Hall University and the Archdiocese of Newark. Established in 1954 as Seton Hall College of Medicine and Dentistry, located in Jersey City, the school opened its doors to its first class of 80 students in 1956. There was a top-notch pool of excellent New Jersey applicants who vied to be among that charter class; and faculty were reputed to be exceptionally dedicated to the tough undertaking of launching a first-rate medical school where none had existed before. On June 4, 1960, the charter class graduated, becoming the very first MDs to earn their degrees in New Jersey, where most remained to practice. A decade later, the state purchased the school for $4 million. In May 1965, it was renamed the New Jersey College of Medicine and Dentistry (NJCMD). In 1968, when state officials were considering relocating the school to Newark, federal, state and local government leaders and representatives of the Newark com-
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munity met to work out the historic social contract called the Newark Agreements, which spelled out the college’s responsibilities to the city. One result was the establishment of the Board of Concerned Citizens, an advisory group that remains active to this day. On July 1, 1968, the move to Newark was begun. That month, the New Jersey College of Medicine and Dentistry assumed operation of Newark City Hospital and renamed it Harrison S. Martland Hospital, after the Newark native who served as the hospital’s pathologist for 45 years and the Essex County Medical Examiner. Martland, a renowned scientist, made several remarkable discoveries. He determined that minute traces of radioactivity contained in luminous paint had caused the deaths of watch dial painters employed at U.S. Radium Corporation in Orange, NJ. Martland Hospital became the school’s principal teaching facility. The school also established strong ties with the 950-bed East Orange Veterans Administration Medical Center. According to an article celebrating the 40th anniversary of the medical school, published 10 years ago in New Jersey Medicine, President Lyndon B. Johnson facilitated this relationship by instructing that the facility be placed at the complete disposal of the medical school. In September 1969, the New Jersey College of Medicine and Dentistry completed its move to Newark; and on June 16, 1970, the state passed the
HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY UMDNJ–UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
