The UVA Health System's history can be traced to the original conception of the University of Virginia on August 1, 1818, whereupon Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and twenty one other men first compiled a report for the Virginia State Legislature to determine a site, building plans, and courses for study for the University of Virginia.
Acknowledging that clinical lectures and medical training was not available in Charlottesville at that time, Jefferson and his colleagues determined that The University should offer education in "the elements of medical science...with a history and explanation of all its successive theories from Hippocrates to the present day," as a way to train both prospective physicians, as well as those students with a more dilettante interest in medicine.

At the first meeting of the university's Board of Visitors in 1819, a School of Medicine was authorized.
The School of Medicine – the 10th medical school in the U.S. – officially opened in March 1825 with a single professor, Dr. Robley Dunglison.
Dunglison had been actively recruited by Thomas Jefferson, and had traveled from London to take up his new position.

Just weeks before Dunglison and his wife arrived in the United States, Jefferson had written to Joseph C. Cabell that an anatomical theater would be "indispensable to the school of anatomy," and that "there cannot be a single dissection until a proper theater is prepared giving an advantageous view of the operation to those within, and effectually excluding observation from without."
This structure, which was eventually demolished in 1938, was one of the first of its kind in the entire United States, conceived and blueprinted by Jefferson himself, who pushed fervently for its construction up until the time of his death in 1825.

The University of Virginia School of Medicine graduated its first four students in 1828, and in 1832, became the first medical school in the United States to standardize the criteria for admission.

More than 75 years later, UVA opened its first hospital in March 1901 with 25 beds and three operating rooms.
Just as medical education has been a part of UVA since its founding, so too has medical literature – the 8,000 books purchased by Jefferson to create the University Library included 710 books on the medical sciences.
UVA's medical literature moved to the UVA Medical School building in 1929.
Its current home was dedicated in April 1976.

In 2016, UVA announced a partnership with Inova Fairfax to establish a satellite campus at the flagship Inova hospital in Northern Virginia.
This agreement also included the establishment of a personal genomics center and a collaboration between the cancer centers of the two entities.
The UVA Health System's history can be traced to the original conception of the University of Virginia on August 1, 1818, whereupon Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and twenty one other men first compiled a report for the Virginia State Legislature to determine a site, building plans, and courses for study for the University of Virginia. Acknowledging that clinical lectures and medical training was not available in Charlottesville at that time, Jefferson and his colleagues determined that The University should offer education in "the elements of medical science...with a history and explanation of all its successive theories from Hippocrates to the present day," as a way to train both prospective physicians, as well as those students with a more dilettante interest in medicine.
At the first meeting of the university's Board of Visitors in 1819, a School of Medicine was authorized. The School of Medicine – the 10th medical school in the U.S. – officially opened in March 1825 with a single professor, Dr. Robley Dunglison. Dunglison had been actively recruited by Thomas Jefferson, and had traveled from London to take up his new position. 
Just weeks before Dunglison and his wife arrived in the United States, Jefferson had written to Joseph C. Cabell that an anatomical theater would be "indispensable to the school of anatomy," and that "there cannot be a single dissection until a proper theater is prepared giving an advantageous view of the operation to those within, and effectually excluding observation from without." This structure, which was eventually demolished in 1938, was one of the first of its kind in the entire United States, conceived and blueprinted by Jefferson himself, who pushed fervently for its construction up until the time of his death in 1825.
The University of Virginia School of Medicine graduated its first four students in 1828, and in 1832, became the first medical school in the United States to standardize the criteria for admission.
More than 75 years later, UVA opened its first hospital in March 1901 with 25 beds and three operating rooms. Just as medical education has been a part of UVA since its founding, so too has medical literature – the 8,000 books purchased by Jefferson to create the University Library included 710 books on the medical sciences. UVA's medical literature moved to the UVA Medical School building in 1929. Its current home was dedicated in April 1976.
In 2016, UVA announced a partnership with Inova Fairfax to establish a satellite campus at the flagship Inova hospital in Northern Virginia. This agreement also included the establishment of a personal genomics center and a collaboration between the cancer centers of the two entities.
University of Virginia School of Medicine