Early Years

Note: Stritch has continuously received accreditation by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME).

SEPTEMBER 1909

Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine affiliates with Illinois Medical College (associated with Reliance Medical College) and creates the Medical Department of Loyola University.

1910

Bennett Medical College seeks an affiliation agreement with a university and approaches Loyola. The merger creates Bennett Medical College of Loyola University and provides Loyola’s president and trustees the ability to supervise the curriculum and prohibit doctrine opposed to Christian morality.

1910

First commencement; Loyola’s Board of Trustees buys the school. 

FEBRUARY 9, 1920

Receives accreditation by the Council on Medical Education and Hospitals of the American Medical Association.

1921

Becomes a member of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). 

1921

Receives inaugural accreditation by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), the governing body recognized by the U.S. Department of Education to accredit the Doctor of Medicine degree.

1940 - 2000

APRIL 15, 1948

Loyola’s Board of Trustees unanimously resolves to rename the school the Stritch School of Medicine in honor of Samuel Cardinal Stritch, Archbishop of Chicago. Cardinal Stritch was instrumental in securing the school's future through Archdiocesan financial support.

AUGUST 1962

The federal government deeds 62 acres of land adjacent to the Edward Hines, Jr. Veterans Administration Hospital to Loyola to create Loyola University Medical Center (LUMC).

1968

The School moves to its new campus, temporarily using former WWII barrack-style buildings for classrooms, on what is now the north end of the campus.  

1970 - 1990

LUMC adds several clinical facilities, including a Level I Trauma Center (the first in Illinois), Burn Center, Mulcahy Outpatient Center, Lifestar helicopter pad, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Russo Surgical Pavilion (with additional operating rooms, intensive care beds, cardiac catheterization laboratories, and a neonatal intensive care unit).

1990 - 2000

LUMC builds an administrative building, parking deck, energy building, helicopter hangar, oral health center, cancer center, emergency room, burn center, Ronald McDonald Children’s Hospital of Loyola, and Ronald McDonald House.

1997

Stritch moves to its current medical education building.

2000 - Present

2000

Loyola builds an outpatient center; expands hospital. 

2001

Loyola honors benefactors John and Herta Cuneo by renaming the building the John and Herta Cuneo Center.

July 1, 2011

Loyola University Chicago completes a transaction with Trinity Health Corporation, in which Trinity replaces the University as the sole member of Loyola University Health System (LUHS) and Trinity assumes control of Loyola University Medical Center (LUMC), Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, and the other health care affiliates. Simultaneously, an affiliation agreement is developed that reserves Loyola University Chicago's oversight over academic matters; secured the educational, research, and service missions of Stritch; identified Stritch as the primary academic partner of LUHS and LUMC; identified LUMC as the primary clinical partner of Stritch in the Chicago metropolitan area, and established a closed staff model at LUMC.

Prior to July 1, 2011, the University owned and had oversight of LUHS, its healthcare affiliate, which oversaw other healthcare related entities, including LUMC, which was separately incorporated in 1995.

2013

Establishes the Department of Medical Education (DOME) to promote innovation, best practices, and leadership in medical and health sciences education. The Department is the catalyst for incorporating the distinctive Stritch values across the curriculum. DOME supports curricular efforts related to social justice and concern for populations who are marginalized and vulnerable, the role of faith in medical practice, and ethical standards of clinical decision making as hallmarks of a Jesuit, Catholic medical education. Systematic, lifelong reflection on one’s professional and personal development as a physician is DOME’s signature, formative educational methodology. DOME is home to a growing cadre of academic educators who focus on teaching and pedagogical scholarship and works collaboratively with clinical departments to advance these common goals. In recognition of and to provide support for the roles that DOME would pursue, the Leischner Institute for Medical Education incorporated into DOME. To honor that incorporation, the Department’s name is changed to Ralph P. Leischner, Jr., MD, Department of Medical Education.

April 2016

Loyola opens its Center for Translational Research and Education (CTRE). Providing over 250,000 square feet of research space and an integrated animal facility, the CTRE includes an auditorium, classrooms, and wet and dry labs. Its open space design fosters collaboration and a truly translational, bench-to-bedside-to-community approach to advance patient and population care.

May 2018

Stritch is the first U.S. medical school to graduate students with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status.

May 2019

Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and Loyola Medicine name nationally-recognized vascular surgeon Vivian Gahtan, MD, professor and chair, Department of Surgery.

2020

Sam J. Marzo, MD, (Stritch Class of '91) and professor of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery and Neurosurgery – is appointed Dean (after serving as interim).

February 2022

Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and Loyola Medicine name internationally-recognized expert in lung disease, Marilyn Glassberg Csete, MD, the first woman to chair the Department of Medicine.