A brief history of the Emory Grady relationship: a shared commitment since the beginning.

Emory and Grady were joined from the beginning. In fact, Emory's shared history with Grady Memorial Hospital actually predates the founding of Emory University. The doctors in the Atlanta Medical College, the city's most established private medical school since 1854, had cared for patients at Grady ever since the hospital opened in downtown Atlanta in 1892. When Emory University was established in Atlanta in 1915, the Atlanta Medical College asked if it could join the new University to become the Emory University School of Medicine.

These new Emory faculty members would go on to establish many other healthcare components such as The Emory Clinic and the hospitals Emory owns, but they never abandoned their love for, and commitment to, Grady.

In the 1930s this arrangement was made more formal, with the understanding that the medical school would train doctors at Grady and, of course, that those young doctors would help with the growing number of patients seen there. Today, as then, the patient care at Grady would not be possible without those young physicians.

The agreement between the two institutions was made even more formal in 1951, with the first contract between Emory and Grady, and thirty-three years later, in 1984, with the current contract. This has been a tremendously successful arrangement for all parties, including Atlanta and Georgia. It has allowed Emory to provide excellent medical care to literally millions of patients over the years and excellent medical training to many thousands of young physicians. Approximately one of every four physicians now practicing in Georgia spent time in Grady through the Emory and Morehouse programs.

For years Emory had the entire responsibility for care at Grady. Then, in 1978, Morehouse School of Medicine was founded to train family-care physicians to practice in medically underserved inner city and rural areas with large populations of minorities and the poor.

As Morehouse got started, Emory was there to help. In the school's early years, Morehouse students moved to Emory and other schools for their clinical years. And like the Emory students, they too all rotated through Grady. In 1985 Morehouse began granting its own M.D. degrees, and the 1984 contract reflects Emory's voluntary sharing of work at Grady with this newer medical school.

Over the years Emory expanded its efforts from simply making certain the city's poorest or most severely injured patients got care. It created and maintains centers of excellence of which any hospital could be proud. Thanks to centers of excellence headed by Emory physicians with growing involvement by Morehouse physicians, Grady Memorial Hospital has one of the nation's leading trauma centers, a nationally known burn center, centers for HIV and AIDS, poison control, sickle cell, community mental health, tuberculosis, pediatric asthma, hazardous materials detoxification, teen pregnancy and new mother drug avoidance. Thanks to Emory doctors, Grady cares for sick babies in a large perinatal care, a neonatal ICU, bringing them in statewide in an Angel II neonatal transport.

Emory also has brought research to Grady, the same kind of research we conduct at Emory Hospital, Crawford Long Hospital, and Wesley Woods Hospital. Many of these research programs are conducted in conjunction with Morehouse, another example of teamwork at Grady. And, as at Emory, Crawford Long, and Wesley Woods, research means patients benefit from the most recent work. Some Emory research firsts at Grady benefiting Georgians include the first transplant for sickle cell anemia and first use of clot-busting drugs for stroke, to name a few. New cancer programs now being established at Grady are expected to lead the nation, bringing the latest science in cancer to a population that has sometimes been the last to benefit from such advances.

For a more detailed description of Grady's history, including photographs and a timeline, read The Grady Crunch.