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The State University of New York Downstate Health Sciences University (SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, formerly the State University of New York Health Science Center at Brooklyn) is a public medical school in Brooklyn, New York City. The university includes the College of Medicine, College of Nursing, School of Health Professions, School of Graduate Studies, and School of Public Health.

SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University is a public medical school and academic medical center in Brooklyn, New York.^[3][4] SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University was founded in 1860 as the Long Island College of Medicine, a division of Long Island College Hospital which had been established in 1858.^[5][6] Its school of nursing was established in 1883.^[6] During the Spanish–American War, the college was used to treat sick and wounded soldiers.^[6]

When the Flexner Report was released in 1910, LICM received a “B” rating.^[6] After instituting the changes recommended in the Flexner Report, the college was recognized with an “A” rating by the American Medical Association in 1914.^[6]

In 1948, the State University of New York (SUNY) was created and conducted a study of existing medical schools.^[6] On April 5, 1950, the Long Island College of Medicine was merged into SUNY, forming the State University Medical Center at New York City.^[5][6] Around 1954, it began using the nickname Downstate Medical Center;^[5] this became its official name in 1960.^[7]

The college was renamed State University of New York Health Science Center at Brooklyn (SUNY HSCB) in 1986.^[5][6] Despite this name change, the instituiton continued to be known as Downstate Medical Center.^[7] Because of this, its name was changed to the State University of New York Downstate Health Sciences University on June 20, 2019.^[5][7] The updated name incorporated “university” to better reflect the degrees it offers.^[7]

The College of Medicine is located at 450 Clarkson Avenue in Brooklyn, New York.^[8] Most of the preclinical learning activities take place in the Health Sciences Education Building located at 395 Lenox Road.

In clinical years, students rotate at several different hospitals, including:^[9]

• SUNY Downstate Medical Center (in-house)
• Kings County Hospital (in-house)
• Downstate at Bay Ridge (in-house)
• Brooklyn Veterans Administration Hospital
• Lenox Hill Hospital
• North Shore University Hospital
• Staten Island University Hospital
• New York Methodist Hospital

Downstate Health Sciences University comprises a College of Medicine, a School of Public Health, a College of Nursing, a School of Health Professions, and a School of Graduate Studies.^[4]

It also includes a major research complex and biotechnology facilities.

It offers a Bachelors, Masters, MD, PhD, DPH, and DPT degrees.^[7] The college of medicine offers several pathways to graduation including joint degree programs and special tracks including MD/Ph.D., MD/MPH, MD Medical Educators Pathway, MD Clinical Neuroscience Pathway, and MD Global Health Pathway.^[10]

In the fall of, the university had 2,204 students, with 286 undergraduates and 1,918 graduates.^[11] As of fall 2018, it had approximately 8,000 faculty and staff. In 2015, SUNY Downstate students matched to almost 18% of all offered EM/IM combined residency positions. 26 additional students matched to emergency medicine programs at institution including UCLA and the University of Pittsburgh.^[12][13][14]

The 2018 entering class averaged an undergraduate GPA of 3.74 and an MCAT of 514. In the same cycle, 5390 prospective students applied for 203 spots in the first-year class.^[15]

Clubs and societies at SUNY Downstate are not limited to the college of medicine but also involve the other schools at SUNY Downstate. Clubs are tailored to a diverse range of interests, including human rights, music, ethnic dialogues, ethics, specialty interest groups, and global health, among many other things.^[16] A chapter of Sigma Xi has operated on campus since 1969;^[6] there is also a chapter of Alpha Omega Alpha.^[17]

The Anne Kastor Brooklyn Free Clinic (BFC) is a student-run free clinic that offers care and health maintenance screening to the uninsured populations of Brooklyn.^[18] Students also volunteer through the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health in partnership with the university.^[6][19] In partnership with the John Conley Division of Medical Ethics and Humanities at the medical center, the Downstate Ethics Society aims to expose students to ethical issues surrounding all aspects of health care.^[20]

• Herbert L. Abrams (1946) – radiologist at Harvard Medical School and the Stanford University School of Medicine; founding vice president of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War^[21]
• Joseph R. Bertino (1954) – chief scientific officer a at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey^[22]
• Andrew G. Bostom (1990) – writer and former associate professor of medicine and researcher at Brown University Medical School^[23]
• Bernard Challenor – professor and acting dean at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health^[24]
• Howard Choi (1997) – principal editor of the PM&R Handbook and assistant professor of rehabilitation medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine^[25]
• Duncan W. Clark (1936) – dean of the Long Island College of Medicine and chairman of the department of environmental medicine and community health at SUNY Downstate^[26]
• Robert Contiguglia (1967) – president of the United States Soccer Federation^[27]
• Allen Frances (1967) – professor and chairman emeritus of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine^[28]
• Eli Friedman (1957) – chief of the Division of Nephrology from 1963 to 2009; inventor of the portable hemodialysis machine^[29]
• José N. Gándara (1933) – heart specialist and chairman of the Puerto Rico Housing Authority^[30][31]
• Nieca Goldberg (1984) – medical director at the Joan H. Tisch Center for Women’s Health at the NYU Langone Medical Center; clinical associate professor of medicine at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine^[32]
• Leon Gordis (1958) – public health officer, professor, and researcher in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Sinai Hospital^[33]
• Nadia Hashimi – pediatrician, novelist, and a former candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives^[34]
• Gerald Imber (1996) – plastic surgeon, assistant clinical professor of surgery at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center ^[35]
• Adrian Kantrowitz (1943) – inventor of the intra-aortic balloon pump and left ventricular assist device^[36]
• Dara Kass (2003) – associate professor of emergency medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center^[37]
• Donald F. Klein (1952) – professor of psychiatry at Columbia University and medical director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute^[38]
• Arthur Krigsman (1989) – pediatrician and gastroenterologist^[39][40]
• Walter Lear (1946) – physician and activist for healthcare reform and LGBT rights^[41]
• Howard Levy (1961) – United States Army doctor who became a resister to the Vietnam War^[42]
• Dorothy Locke – fencer who competed in the 1932 Summer Olympics and 1936 Summer Olympics^[43]
• Susan Love (1974) – prominent advocate of preventive breast cancer research; professor of surgery at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA^[44]
• James Mahoney (1986) – head of the intensive care unit and a clinical assistant professor of medicine at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center^[45]
• Tony Marvin (non-graduate) – radio and television announcer^[46]
• Thomas G. McGinn (1989) – professor at Baylor College of Medicine and chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center^[47]
• A. L. Mestel (1952) – pioneer in the field of pediatric surgery, known for the first successful separation of Ischiopagus Tripus conjoined twins
• Frank Moya – chair of the Department of Anestesiology at the University of Miami School of Medicine^[48]
• James A. Nicholas (1945) – physician for the New York Jets, the New York Knicks, and the New York Rangers^[49]
• William E. Paul (1960) – immunologist and director of the Office of AIDS Research^[50]
• Joseph L. Pfeifer (1914) – United States House of Representatives^[51]
• Alan S. Rabson – pathologist and cancer researcher, deputy director of the National Cancer Institute from 1995 to 2015^[52]
• Arthur Schatzkin (1976) – nutritional epidemiologist at the National Cancer Institute^[53][54]
• George A. Sheehan – 1972 Summer Olympics gold medalist in the marathon and non-fiction author^[55]
• Leonard Shengold (1951) – psychiatrist known for studies on child abuse and popularizing the term “soul murder”^[56]
• Ralph Snyderman (1965) – chancellor emeritus and dean of the Duke University School of Medicine^[57]
• Marc Straus (1968) – oncologist, art collector, poet, and writer^[58]
• Calvin Sun (2014) – physician, filmmaker, and blogger known for The Monsoon Diaries
• Louis Wender (1913) – chief of psychiatry at Beth Israel Hospital^[59]
• Alexander S. Wiener (1930) – biologist and physician specializing in forensic medicine, serology, and immunogenetics^[60]
• Harry Wiener (1949) – chemist at Pfizer^[61]
• Abraham Wikler (1935) – psychiatrist and neurologist who specialized in drug addiction^[62]
• Richard Allen Williams (1962) – clinical professor of medicine at the UCLA School of Medicine and founder of the Association of Black Cardiologists^[63]

• Alfred Adler – psychotherapist who was an associate of Sigmund Freud and visiting professor of medical psychiatry at the Long Island College of Medicine^[64][6]
• Henri Begleiter – former distinguished professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at SUNY Downstate Medical Center^[65][6]
• Chandler McCuskey Brooks – chairman of the physiology and pharmacology departments at Long Island College of Medicine^[66][6]
• F. Charles Brunicardi – dean of the College of Medicine at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University^[67]
• Giulio Cantoni – assistant professor of pharmacology at Long Island College of Medicine from 1945 to 1948; director of the United States‘ National Institutes of Health‘s biochemistry laboratory^[68]
• Duncan W. Clark – dean of the Long Island College of Medicine and chairman of the department of environmental medicine and community health at SUNY Downstate^[26]
• Raymond Damadian – former professor and inventor of the MR Scanning Machine; first person to perform a full-body MR scan on a human^[69]
• Clarence Dennis – chair of the Department of Surgery (1951), inventor of one of the first cardiopulmonary bypass machines^[70][6]
• Robert Latou Dickinson – professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Long Island College of Medicine^[71]
• Richard D. Feinman – professor of cell biology^[72]
• Eli Friedman – chief of the Division of Nephrology from 1963 to 2009; inventor of the portable hemodialysis machine^[6]
• Robert F. Furchgott – professor of pharmacology from 1956 to 1989; recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine^[73][74][6]
• Phillips Foster Greene – clinical professor of surgery and associate dean at Long Island College of Medicine from 1944 to 1951^[75]
• Frank Hastings Hamilton – chair of military medicine during the Civil War^[6]
• Pascal James Imperato – founding dean of the School of Public Health^[6]
• Samuel L. Kountz – chairman of the Department of surgery at Downstate Medical Center; performed the first successful kidney transplant between non-identical humans^[76][6]
• Stephen Macknik – professor of ophthalmology, neurology, physiology, and pharmacology; co-author of Sleights of Mind.^[77][78][79]
• James Mahoney – head of the intensive care unit and a clinical assistant professor of medicine at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center^[45]
• Susana Martinez-Conde – professor of ophthalmology, neurology, physiology, and pharmacology; co-author of Sleights of Mind^[79][80]
• William Montagna – assistant professor at the Long Island College of Medicine from 1945 to 1948; later head of experimental biology at Oregon Health & Science University and director of the Oregon National Primate Research Center^[81]
• James B. Ranck Jr. – professor emeritus of physiology; discoverer of head direction cells^[82]
• Alexander Skene – president of the college from 1893 to 1899, dean of the faculty from 1886 to 1892, professor of diseases of women and clinical obstetrics^[83][6]
• T. K. Sreepada Rao – former professor of medicine and associate director of renal diseases^[84]
• Evelyn M. Witkin – bacterial geneticist at SUNY Downstate Medical Center fro 1955 to 1971; recipient of the National Medal of Science^[6]

In 2013, SUNY Downstate released a court-ordered financial audit, which found the institution in need of capital funds, citing large losses from 2007 through 2011. The audit cited bloated salaries for top administrators, underuse, and poor financial decisions as contributing to the losses.^[85][86]

In January 2020, two SUNY Downstate surgeons filed lawsuits accusing the medical center of retaliation against them for reporting patient safety and death concerns in the heart-surgery and organ-transplant programs. Before the complaint, the institution paused these two programs in July 2019 due to pressure from the New York State Department of Health and the United Network for Organ Sharing when reviewers found issues in the programs and recommended a more extensive review in hopes to remediate the problems.^[87]