In 1869 the University of Michigan opened the first hospital in the United States to be owned and operated by a university. Professor Joel Howell (History, Internal Medicine, and Health Management and Policy; University of Michigan) will discuss the debates over whether the University of Michigan should run a hospital, who should run it, what should be in it, why the university decided to keep the hospital in Ann Arbor, and what difference these decisions have made to medical research, education, and patient care in Ann Arbor and elsewhere.

Photo: Photograph of the university's first hospital, 1877. Courtesy Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.