Hahnemann University

MCP Hahnemann University drew its roots from two unique medical institutions in Philadelphia. In 1848, the Homeopathic College of Pennsylvania was established by Constantine Hering, Jacob Jeanes and Walter Williamson, to provide training in what was then an emerging system of medicine called homeopathy. In 1869, the Homeopathic College was renamed in honor of Samuel Hahnemann, one of the pioneers of homeopathic medicine, as Hahnemann Medical College. In 1982, Hahnemann Medical College gained university status as Hahnemann University.

Two years later, in 1850, the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania (1850-1867), which later became the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania (1867-1970) and then the Medical College of Pennsylvania (1970-1995), was established by Quaker businessmen, clergy and physicians and headed by philanthropist William J. Mullen, becoming the world's first medical school for women.

Both medical schools continued their parallel histories of innovation and excellence for a century and a half, and in 1993, the two merged to form the MCP Hahnemann School of Medicine of Allegheny University of the Health Sciences, the largest private medical school in the country. Five years after this historic merger, the parent corporation of the medical school, Allegheny Health Education and Research Foundation (AHERF), declared bankruptcy.

In 1998, following the bankruptcy of AHERF, the California-based Tenet Healthcare Corporation acquired Allegheny University's facilities as part of a larger acquisition of Philadelphia-area hospitals, clinics and other properties belonging to AHERF. Soon after, the assets of the University were transferred to a newly created nonprofit entity doing business as MCP Hahnemann University. At Tenet's invitation, Drexel University agreed to assume operation of the new University.

One of the benefits of MCP Hahnemann's affiliation with Drexel has been the upgrade to the computing environments on both campuses. Drexel was recently rated by Yahoo! Internet Life Magazine as the 16th most wired university in the United States. By the Fall 2001 term, all Drexel academic buildings were fully "wireless-networked" as well, and MCP Hahnemann became the first medical school in the U.S. to have a fully wireless campus.

In 2002, the Drexel University board of trustees voted unanimously in favor of merging MCP Hahnemann University into Drexel. The trustees approved an agreement between Drexel and Tenet Healthcare Corporation for a 20-year affiliation that continues the partnership between the College of Medicine and Tenet's teaching hospitals in the Philadelphia area.

The post-merger Drexel will join the 51 private universities classified by the Carnegie Foundation as Doctoral/Research Universities-Extensive, which include Carnegie-Mellon, MIT, Caltech and Penn. Drexel also joins the top 100 U.S. universities in federal research expenditures and market value of endowment.

"We have a bright future ahead of us as a result of the merger. Drexel has added the nation's largest private medical school, an outstanding college of nursing and health professions and one of only two schools of public health in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This, along with our complementary partnership with Tenet, positions the University at the forefront of the movement in academic medicine to partner non-profit educational institutions with for-profit hospital systems. Drexel, as Philadelphia's technological university, is committed to creating a quality learning and research environment, allowing Tenet to concentrate on continuing to provide quality patient care and training opportunities for our students."

Constantine Papadakis, Ph.D., President, Drexel University