OU Health Sciences Center

OU Health Sciences Center. . "He who enters a university walks on hallowed ground." James Bryant Conant (1893-1978) , The OU Health Sciences Center is the state's educational training facility for physicians, scientists, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, and public health and allied health professionals. , The center traces its origins to the beginning of the 20th century when pharmacy and medicine classes were first offered on the OU Norman campus. The first two years of medical instruction were conducted on the Norman campus, with third-and-fourth-year students and nursing students trained at the State University Hospital on Fourth Street and other Oklahoma City medical facilities., Completed in 1919 at the corner of 13th and Phillips, University Hospital became the first building constructed on what would become the OU Health Sciences Center campus. In 1921, an adjacent School of Nursing Building was completed. Under the advocacy of Ponca City philanthropist Lew Wentz, the Hospital for Crippled Children became a reality in 1921. Also in 1928, the College of Medicine Building was completed across the street from University Hospital, and medical students began taking all four years of their schooling in Oklahoma City. , The next great wave of university construction began in the late 1960s, under the leadership of College of Medicine Dean James L. Dennis, M.D.; Oklahoma civic leader Stanton L. Young; Department of Welfare director Lloyd Rader; Oklahoma oilman Dean A. McGee; and E.T. Dunlap, chancellor of the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, who envisioned the university's role in creating a larger health center to serve the people of Oklahoma. Impetus for much growth was the 1968 HERO (Health and Education for a Richer Oklahoma) bond issue passed by the people of Oklahoma., By the mid 1970s, the College of Pharmacy had moved to the Oklahoma City campus and the colleges of Allied Health, Public Health and Dentistry had been established., As one of only four comprehensive academic health sciences centers in the nation to include seven professional schools, the OU Health Sciences Center has become the cornerstone of the Oklahoma Health Center., The scientists, scholars and clinicians appointed to the OU Health Sciences Center faculty stand at the leading edge of their profession. They not only train the next generation of health-care providers and researchers, many are themselves practicing professionals actively involved in improving the lives and health of Oklahomans. Their expertise and commitment to teaching, healing and research symbolize the purpose and vision of the OU Health Sciences Center.