TIMELINE: MICHIGAN MEDICINE AND THE DEPARTMENT OF NEUROSURGERY

1817: The University of Michigan is founded as one of the first public universities in the nation.

1848: The Board of Regents establishes a three-member medical department, known today as the U-M Medical School.

1850: The Medical School opens its doors to more than 100 students, who are charged $5 per year for a two years of education.

1869: U-M becomes the first university in the nation to own and operate its own hospital. The 20-bed facility is in the residence of a former professor and has no operating rooms or wards.

1875: U-M adds two wooden pavilions to the hospital. The structure is designed to be “easily burned down in 10 years because it would be badly infected,” according to the writings of one physician.

1891: A new hospital on Catherine Street replaces the old Campus Pavilion Hospital.

1900: The U.S. medical community recognizes the Catherine Street Hospital as the largest teaching hospital in the country.

1916: The first Chairperson of Neurosurgery, Dr. Max Minor Peet, joins the Department of Surgery as an instructor and is encouraged by the Chairperson of Surgery to specialize in surgery of the nervous system.

1918: Dr. Peet is doing mostly neurosurgery and the specialty is officially recognized as a surgical subspecialty.

1925: The new 700-bed University Hospital replaces the Catherine Street Hospital; Dr. Edgar A. Kahn joins Dr. Peet as the first resident in neurosurgery.

1946: Neuroanatomist Elizabeth Crosby becomes the first female faculty member to deliver the prestigious Henry Russel Lecture.

1949: When Dr. Peet dies suddenly in the operating room, Dr. Kahn becomes the second Chairperson of Neurosurgery.

1969: Upon Dr. Kahn’s retirement, Dr. Richard C. Schneider becomes the third Chairperson of Neurosurgery. Dr. Schneider and renowned neuroanatomist Dr. Elizabeth Crosby author the classic textbook Correlative Neurosurgery.

1981: Dr. Julian T. Hoff becomes the fourth Chairperson of Neurosurgery.

1982: The Neurosurgery Laboratories that began under the leadership of Drs. Peet, Kahn, Schneider, and Crosby were named for Dr. Elizabeth Crosby.

1983: Dr. Hoff hires the first full-time pediatric neurosurgeon – Dr. Joan Venes – who is one of the first women who trained in neurosurgery.

1986: A new 11-story, 550-bed adult general University Hospital replaces the old University Hospital and the A. Alfred Taubman Health Care Center is connected to the facility.

2001: Neurosurgery is given full departmental status at the University of Michigan, elevating it from a Section of Surgery to the Department of Neurosurgery and allowing the department to take a more active role in the higher-level decision-making processes of the Health System as a whole.

2005: Dr. Karin Muraszko becomes the fifth and current Chairperson of Neurosurgery; Dr. Muraszko is the first woman to become chairperson of a neurosurgery program in the United States.

2015: Plans are set in motion for a new clinical inpatient tower – the anchor tenant of which will be Neurosurgery – intended to open in 2022.