March 31, 2006

Dear Colleagues:

Congratulations to both faculty and staff for the intellectual and service efforts that helped maintain The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s place among the top medical schools in U.S. News & World Report’s annual ranking of medical schools.

We are delighted again to be number two and in the best of company always with all of the schools that earn high rankings and we congratulate our peer institutions.

In addition to the outstanding performance of our faculty and staff, the magazine’s list recognizes a number of specialty school departments highly ranked by medical school deans and senior faculty at the nation’s medical schools.

This year we ranked #1 in Internal Medicine, as well as in Drug/Alcohol Abuse (tied with Yale); #2 in AIDS (behind University of California-San Francisco) and Geriatrics (tied with Mount Sinai and behind the University of California-Los Angeles) and #3 in Pediatrics (behind Harvard and University of Pennsylvania). In addition, Women’s Health moved to #3 from #4 (behind Harvard and University of California-San Francisco).
Among engineering specialty programs, we ranked #1 in Biomedical/Bioengineering.

In the Biological Sciences we ranked #5 (tied with California Institute of Technology). In biological sciences specialties we ranked #4 in Immunology/Infectious Disease, #5 in Neuroscience/Neurobiology, #7 in Molecular Biology and Cell Biology (tied with Yale), #8 in Biochemistry/Biophysics/Structural Biology and Microbiology (tied with University of Georgia and University of Washington) and #9 in Genetics/Genomics/Bioinformatics.
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 as research grants, student selectivity and faculty resources).

The magazine’s top 10 medical schools overall are Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, University of California-San Francisco, Washington University in St. Louis, Duke University, Stanford University, University of Washington, Yale University and Baylor College of Medicine.

These results offer much-appreciated affirmation of what we already know, that Hopkins is a place where great people do great work. And as Johns Hopkins and all academic medical centers continue to face intense public scrutiny, rapid change and economic challenges and uncertainties, 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