April 4, 2003

Dear Colleagues:

Congratulations! You've done it yet again. For the 13th consecutive year, you've made The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine the #2 medical school in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report's annual ranking. Of the nation's 125 accredited medical schools, only Harvard outscored Hopkins, coming in #1 with an overall score of 100. Johns Hopkins' overall score rose from 94 last year to 97 this year, a tie with Washington University in St. Louis.

As we say each year, the differences among the top ten are minor; and we congratulate them all. We are honored to be among the best of the best.
Our school, and its extraordinary faculty and staff, also can take pride in the lineup of clinical specialties ranked tops in the magazine's Best Graduate Schools 2004 edition that goes on sale Monday, April 7.

This year we've been ranked #1 in Geriatrics and in Drug/Alcohol Abuse (both up from #4 last year) and #1 again in Biomedical Engineering (trailed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology); #2 in Internal Medicine and in AIDS; #3 again in Pediatrics and #4 again in Women's Health.

Basic sciences were not reviewed this year. Last year, Johns Hopkins tied for fifth place with Stanford in the overall category of Biological Sciences. In Ph.D. specialty programs with a strong base in the School of Medicine, we tied for 4th place in Neuroscience, Microbiology, and Biochemistry; 5th in Molecular Biology; and 6th in Cell Biology.

According to the magazine, it bases its medical school rankings on a combination of two reputational surveys (one of deans/senior faculty and another of directors of intern-residency programs) and objective data (such things as research awarded to the medical school and all its affiliated hospitals, student selectivity, and faculty resources).

Rounding out the magazine's top ten research intensive medical schools overall are University of Pennsylvania, Duke, UCSF, Columbia University, University of Michigan, Stanford and Yale. The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health ranked 1st and the School of Nursing ranked 6th.

We know that these rankings are not entirely "scientific," and I don't need them to treasure your hard work and accomplishments. But as Johns Hopkins and all academic medical centers continue to face intense public scrutiny, rapid change, economic challenges and uncertain times, it is extraordinarily gratifying to me that others recognize your unflagging commitment to excellence. Thanks to each and every one of you.

Edward D. Miller, M.D.

Dean of the Medical Faculty
CEO, Johns Hopkins Medicine