Geisel School of Medicine

Five ways that Geisel is improving lives

Birthplace of modern immunotherapy

The first, life-saving immunotherapy drugs for cancer (Opdivo and Yervoy) were based on discoveries made by Dartmouth scientists who founded the company Medarex. Today, Dartmouth researchers are leading the way again, with next-generation immunotherapies, three of which are in multi-national clinical trials. This includes the world’s first universal, off-the-shelf, CAR T-cell therapy that can target more than 80% of human cancers.

Healthcare delivery science: more does not equal better

Dartmouth physician Jack Wennberg, MD, was the first to document widespread and unwarranted geographic variations in healthcare costs and outcomes—variations as much as 10-fold without any benefits to patients. Wennberg and colleagues created the now legendary Dartmouth Atlas of Healthcare and The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice (TDI). Today, The Dartmouth Institute is pioneering new ways of delivering health care and designing health care systems to improve quality, lower costs, empower patients, and improve health equity.

Cross-training medical students in health systems

Geisel pioneered the integration of health care delivery science into the MD curriculum. In fact, it was the first medical school to require a hands-on clinical quality improvement clerkship for all medical students, beginning in 2010. Today, Geisel is continuing its national leadership in medical education as one of seven medical schools selected for the Kern National Network for Caring and Character in Medicine, which aims to transform medical education. In 2019, Geisel launched a new coaching program for students, which provides longitudinal advising and professional development.

Protecting children and babies from toxins

Discoveries by Dartmouth researchers have led to new federal guidelines for allowable arsenic levels in baby rice cereal—and prompted the American Academy of Pediatrics to change their infant first-food recommendations. The researchers found that exposure to arsenic through rice products, apple juice, and contaminated water negatively impacts fetal growth, immune system function, and gene expression. Now, because of the expertise of researchers at Geisel and in the Department of Earth Sciences, Dartmouth is leading a five-year, multi-million-dollar study in collaboration with Stanford University and Harvard Medical School, investigating the relationships between lifestyle, medical interventions, environmental exposures, epigenetics, growth, immune function, and neurodevelopment.

Training Rwanda’s healthcare workforce

Through its Center for Global Health Equity, Geisel is one of several top U.S. medical schools and hospitals chosen by the Rwandan Health Ministry to help rebuild the nation’s health care workforce. Beginning in 2012, nearly a dozen Geisel faculty—general practitioners, specialists, and subspecialists—have worked in Rwanda for months at a time to train the country’s physicians and medical educators. Rwandan physicians and trainees have also spent time at Dartmouth and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center—as part of fulfilling Dartmouth’s commitment to reciprocity in global health partnerships.