Christian Medical College, Vellore, widely known as CMC, Vellore, is a private, nonprofit, Christian minority community-run medical college and hospital in Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India. This institute includes a network of primary, secondary and tertiary care hospitals.
The institute, constituent college is affiliated with the Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R. Medical University. Founded in 1900 by an American missionary, Dr Ida S. Scudder, CMC Vellore has brought many significant achievements to India, including starting the first College of Nursing in 1946, performing the first reconstructive surgery for leprosy in the world (1948), performing the first successful open heart surgery in India (1961), performing the first kidney transplant in India (1971), performing first bone marrow transplantation (1986) in India and performing the first successful ABO incompatible kidney transplant in India (2009).
History
thumb|Ida S. Scudder as a young woman
thumb|Heritage Centre near the main entrance
The hospital was founded by Dr. Ida Sophia Scudder in 1900. Ida Scudder was the daughter of second-generation medical missionaries from the Dutch Reformed Church in the United States of America (US) who served in India. She was born in 1870 in Ranipet, which is approximately 60 miles from Madras (known as Chennai today). As a young girl she witnessed famine, poverty and death, and vowed that she would never follow in her parents' footsteps and become a missionary. The Scudder family returned to the US on furlough in 1878 and Ida began her education. Her parents returned to India, but Ida Scudder stayed in the US attending the Northfield Seminary for Young Ladies (now Northfield Mount Herman). In 1891, she was called back to India to care for her ailing mother.
It was at this time that Ida became acutely aware of the lack of medical services available to women and children in India, primarily due to cultural and religious norms that did not allow male practitioners to treat females. This awareness became the driving force of her life one evening in her parents' bungalow, when a young Indian man came to the door requesting Ida's help for his wife who was struggling in childbirth. He rejected Ida's father, Dr John Scudder's care and left. Two more men came that very night with similar requests, seeking medical help for their wives in labor, but again turning down John Scudder's care. The three women and their babies died that night. The incident shook 24-year-old Ida Scudder to the core.
After prayer and deep thought Ida Scudder changed the course of her life, deciding to become a doctor in the US so that she could return to India to treat Indian female patients, and train Indian women to become doctors and nurses to serve their own. She returned to the US and in 1895, enrolled in the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. She completed her studies in New York where she was in the first class of doctors at Cornell Medical College The hospital has eleven sites and serves over 2000 inpatients and 8,000 outpatients daily, with 67 wards, 92 clinics each day and over 150 departments/units. Each year 100 students are admitted for the undergraduate medical course MBBS. The MBBS course is recognized by the Medical Council of India.
Administration
The Christian Medical College is a registered voluntary, non-profit organization. John Riehl is the President of the Foundation.
Recognitions
CMC Vellore was conferred with the public Health Champion Award by the WHO (World Health Organization) in 2015, took Platinum Awards in every category of the prestigious SKOCH Awards in 2014. In 2015 the college won the coveted and prestigious D. L. Shah Quality Award - Gold for its Clinical Audit Programme.
Academics
The college offers MBBS, 57 post-graduate diploma and degree medical courses (MS, MD, DM, MCh, Bachelor of Science, Master of Science and PhD), 44 Allied Health Science courses, and 14 diploma courses in nursing and other fields, and 52 Fellowship courses. A total of about 2500 students are enrolled per year.
Rankings
CMC Vellore is ranked second among medical colleges in India in 2022 by India Today and many departments are subdivided into units of particular expertise in specific areas, as in the division of Surgery which is broken down into eight units specializing in Head and Neck Surgery, Endocrine Surgery, Vascular Surgery, Colorectal surgery, etc. The Mental Health Centre, CMC's department of Psychiatry, is located on the Bagayam Campus. This center also houses the faculty for the evaluation and training of mentally challenged children, which is called Nambikkai Nilayam, a Tamil phrase meaning the Center for Hope.
Radiology reports are incorporated into a film-less digital system Picture archiving and communication system (PACS), the first in the country, started in 2000. Medical professionals can view the images on any computer that is on the hospital network. Laboratory test results are also incorporated into the hospital intranet, making them accessible anywhere inside the hospital.
- Mahendra Bhandari, Padma Shri awardee
- Nagarur Gopinath, cardiothoracic surgeon and Padma Shri awardee
- Minnie M. Mathan, Ultrastructural pathologist, Gastroenterologist
See also
- Council of Christian Hospitals