Faculty, board members and distinguished guests gathered on November 17th for a festive dinner to commemorate the anniversary and honor Drexel President Constantine Papadakis. The celebration was held at the Westin Hotel’s Grand Ballroom. 

During the dinner, City Council members Frank Rizzo and Jannie Blackwell presented two citations from the city – one honoring and recognizing the College of Medicine and its faculty and staff, the other honoring and recognizing President Papadakis “for his contributions to Drexel University, the College of Medicine, higher education, and this City.” 

Also during the dinner, College of Medicine Dean Richard Homan, M.D., unveiled a commemorative book titled “A Decade of Opportunity and Innovation Built on 160 Years of Progress.” The book tells the remarkable story of the events that led to the creation of Drexel University College of Medicine, along with the achievements in the ten years since.

It was on November 11, 1998 when Drexel University made the bold and controversial move to take over the financially troubled Allegheny University of the Health Sciences. Allegheny had filed for bankruptcy – the largest nonprofit failure in the nation’s history – and Philadelphia faced the prospect of losing 13,000 jobs, as well as hospitals such as Hahnemann, MCP, St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children and colleges of medicine, public health, and nursing.

“If we didn’t take over the medical school, this would have been the biggest disaster for the city of Philadelphia,” remembers Papadakis. “It was a completely unusual set of circumstances for a university to be involved in.”

Papadakis and College of Medicine Chairman Manuel Stamatakis worked with city and state leaders to put together a deal for Drexel to manage the medical school under the name MCP Hahnemann University, while Tenet Healthcare Corp. took over the hospitals. Three years later, the Drexel board voted to permanently take over the school, renaming it Drexel University College of Medicine.

Today, Drexel University College of Medicine has the largest medical student enrollment of any private medical school in the country. It has incorporated Drexel University’s expertise in engineering and technology to foster collaborations that have led to medical breakthroughs in fields such as surgery, microbiology, spinal cord research and others.

“We are now in a position where the school is very stable,” said Homan. “We have outstanding faculty members, excellent students and superb training, well above the national mean in scores and pass rates. The medical school is thriving.”

Homan and Stamatakis say much of the credit for the success goes to President Papadakis. “He had a real vision of a collaboration between one of the best engineering schools and medical schools,” said Stamatakis. “It has played out even better than expected.”