East Tennessee State University. College of Medicine

Biography

Founded in 1974, the Quillen College of Medicine became the second state supported medical school in Tennessee along with the University of Tennessee Medical Units in Memphis. The establishment of a medical school in Johnson City was strongly opposed by much of the rest of the state of Tennessee. Led by James H. Quillen in the United States Congress and State Representatives P.L. Robinson and Gwen Fleming, as well as State Senator Marshall Nave and members of the ETSU community such as President D.P. Culp, Dean John Lamb, and Dr. Charles Allen, the entire East Tennessee community pushed to get one of the five medical schools funded under the Teague-Cranston Act located in Johnson City. Initially, the College of Medicine was named the Quillen-Dishner College of Medicine. In 1989 Dishner was dropped from the name and the school became the James H. Quillen College of Medicine, commonly referred to as simply the Quillen College of Medicine.

The Teague-Cranston Act, passed in 1972, created five new medical schools in the United States, provided that those schools were located contiguous with a V.A. hospital. This particular provision made Johnson City an ideal location given the existence of the V.A. campus at Mountain Home just across the road from East Tennessee State University.

The Quillen College of Medicine was intended to help combat the severe doctor shortage in East Tennessee by focusing on primary and rural health care, with the hope that many of the graduates would choose to stay and work in the underserved areas of East Tennessee. In 1978 the first students began their academic careers at what was then called the Quillen-Dishner College of Medicine.

Citation:

Abstract:

UnivRec 822

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