The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) is a public medical school in Charleston, South Carolina. It opened in 1824 as a small private college aimed at training physicians and has since established hospitals and medical facilities across the state. It is one of the oldest continually operating schools of medicine in the United States and the oldest in the Deep South. The school has expanded into a state university with a medical center and six colleges for the education of health professionals, biomedical scientists, and other health care personnel. It also operates as a center for research and has a public hospital. Colleges College of Medicine History The College of Medicine began in 1823 with the incorporation of the Medical College of South Carolina, a private institution of the Medical Society of South Carolina. Seven Charleston physicians formed the initial faculty with 30 students enrolled in 1824. The first graduation was on April 4, 1825. With the exception of the American Civil War, the college has served continuously to the present, even when there was a total enrollment of two students. At the time of Dr. Robert Wilson's appointment as dean of the College of Medicine in 1908, Abraham Flexner was beginning his survey of the medical college. Flexner's survey resulted in the report titled "Medical Education in the United States and Canada". It was highly critical of the medical college and its poor facilities, lack of full-time faculty, lack of equipment, and lack of money. Recognizing that the college did not meet national requirements, Dr. Wilson determined that the only way to save the college from closure was to transfer it to state ownership in order to have access to state appropriations. The state took over formal control of the college in 1913. In 1969, twelve African Americans were fired from the hospital, resulting in a two-month-long strike and protest that gathered as many as 10,000 participants, including influential leaders such as Coretta Scott King. Structure The College of Medicine consists of many departments: Anesthesia and Perioperative Medicine, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Cell and Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, Comparative Medicine, Dermatology, Family Medicine, Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology, Neurosciences, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Ophthalmology, Orthopaedic Surgery, Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Pediatrics, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Radiation Oncology, Radiology, Surgery, Regenerative Medicine and Cell Biology, and Urology. Degree programs The College