Медицинский центр Университета Миссисипи: История и современность

University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) is the health sciences campus of the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) and is located in Jackson, Mississippi, United States. UMMC, also referred to as the Medical Center, is the state's only academic medical center. UMMC houses seven health science schools: Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, Health Related Professions, Graduate Studies in the Health Sciences, Population Health and Pharmacy. (The main School of Pharmacy is headquartered on the University of Mississippi (UM) campus in Oxford, Mississippi.) The 164 acre campus also includes University Hospital, Wiser Hospital for Women and Infants, Conerly Critical Care Hospital, Children's of Mississippi (including the Blair E. Batson Tower and the Kathy and Joe Sanderson Tower), the state's only children's hospital, and Rowland Medical Library.

The University of Mississippi 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 enacted a law to create a four year medical school associated with the University of Mississippi. On July 1, 1955, the state's new Medical Center, then commonly referred to as UMC, 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 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 graduate program was elevated to school status in 2001 and designated the School of Graduate Studies in the Health Sciences. The parcel of land on which UMMC's University Hospital sits was once the site of the Mississippi Insane Asylum, which moved its operations in 1935 to Whitfield, Miss., and became Mississippi State Hospital.

At its opening in 1955, UMMC provided care to African American patients, but the patient care facilities were segregated by race, according to local laws in the South at the time. In 1963, civil rights leader Medgar Evers was rushed to UMMC after being shot at his home in Jackson, MS, but he died in the hospital emergency room. In 1964, UMMC became the primary medical provider for injured Freedom Riders. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited federally funded institutions from discriminating. In 1965, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund filed a federal civil rights complaint against UMMC. Robert Q. Marston, MD, then medical dean and Medical Center director, developed a compliance strategy which included hiring the first black faculty member, and integrating the hospitals and clinics. At about the same time, Dr. Blair E. Batson, chair of the Department of Pediatrics at UMMC, offered a position in the department's residency education program to Dr. Aaron Shirley, an African American physician who had attended medical school in Tennessee. Shirley became the first African American learner at UMMC when he entered the residency program in 1965. In 1966, Sammie Long became the first Black woman to attend the school. In 1972, James Oliver became the school's first Black M. D. degree recipient.

In June 2023, the UMMC shut down its LGBT health clinic in response to legislative pressure.

As the academic health sciences campus of the University of Mississippi, the Medical Center functions as a separately accredited, semi autonomous unit responsible to the chancellor of the university and through him to the constitutional Board of Trustees of the State Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL). The University of Mississippi Medical Center is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) to award baccalaureate, master's and doctorate degrees. The Medical Center is accredited by The Joint Commission. The IHL Board of Trustees appoints the UM chancellor, who then recommends a candidate for UMMC's vice chancellor for health affairs. The vice chancellor also serves as the dean of the University of Mississippi School of Medicine. LouAnn Woodward, MD, was named March 1, 2015, to fill the vice chancellor position. She is responsible for the overall strategic direction of the Medical Center. She is the first woman and the 10th person to hold the post. Enrollment in UMMC's 35 degree programs is more than 3,000 students. Admission preference is given to Mississippi residents in an effort to supply professionals to meet the state's health care needs. The Associated Student Body (ASB) is the student government association for UMMC. It serves as a mechanism to organize student extracurricular activities and to voice student concerns, ideas, and questions to the administration and community. UMMC is the only hospital in the state designated as a Level 1 trauma center. Specialized hospital services include: an interventional MRI; the only Level 4 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, liver, pancreas, 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. A portion of land on the UMMC campus was once the site of the Mississippi Insane Asylum, which moved its operations in 1935 and became Mississippi State Hospital.

In 2003, UMMC helped start a pilot program to connect emergency physicians in Jackson with three rural hospitals using telecommunications. The program has now grown into the Center for Telehealth, which ranks among the top programs in the nation. Telehealth, also known as telemedicine, uses remote technologies to provide services ranging from diabetes counseling to remote monitoring of intensive care patients. UMMC's telehealth program functions as a virtual clinic performing direct medical diagnostics and treatment from physicians, specialists and nurses. It averages 8,000 consultations a month. In 2015, UMMC and data company Venyu Solutions (acquired by EATEL in 2013) partnered to expand the Medical Center's telehealth services. The 40,000 square foot UMMC Center for Telehealth Venyu Technology Campus is being constructed by Duvall Decker Architects, in Jackson, Mississippi, and is recognized by an AIA Mississippi Award Citation.

The University of Mississippi Medical Center's Helicopter Flight program began operations in 1996 with a single helicopter based in Jackson. The Jackson based AirCare 1 helicopter was joined by the Meridian based AirCare 2 helicopter in spring 2009, the Golden Triangle based AirCare 3 in spring 2016, and Greenwood based Aircare 4 in 2017. The additional helicopters allowed AirCare to expand its mission profile by transporting patients to not only UMMC, but other hospitals able to provide levels of care required by the patient's illness or injury. Scene response profile has also changed, allowing the transportation of multiple patients from a single location. Since the program's inception, AirCare teams have safely transported over 18,000 adults, pediatric and neonatal patients over 2 million miles without any FAA reportable accidents as of 2016.

Dr. David S. Pankratz, 1955–61; dean, School of Medicine and Medical Center director
Dr. Robert Q. Marston, 1961–66; dean, School of Medicine, Medical Center director and vice chancellor for health affairs
Dr. John Gronvall, 1966–1967; acting dean, School of Medicine and acting Medical Center director
Dr. Robert Carter, 1967–70; dean, School of Medicine and Medical Center director
Dr. Robert E. Blount, 1970–73; dean, School of Medicine and Medical Center director
Dr. Norman C. Nelson, 1973–94; dean, School of Medicine and vice chancellor for health affairs
Dr. Wallace Conerly, 1994–2003; dean, School of Medicine and vice chancellor for health affairs
Dr. Daniel W. Jones, 2003–10; dean, School of Medicine and vice chancellor for health affairs
Dr. James E. Keeton, 2010–15; dean, School of Medicine and vice chancellor for health affairs
Dr. LouAnn Woodward, 2015–present; dean, School of Medicine and vice chancellor for health affairs