Research Rankings Show Improvement
Three Feinberg School of Medicine departments—urology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and cell and molecular biology—are ranked in the top 10 in terms of National Institutes of Health funding for fiscal year 2004 among their peers in the 127 medical schools across the country. Urology ranks 2nd (same as last year), physical medicine and rehabilitation 4th (up from 15th), and cell and molecular biology 9th (8th last year).
Other Feinberg School departments that ranked well include physiology (13, up from 23), preventive medicine (13, up from 22), dermatology (21), microbiology—immunology (26), neurology (26, up from 31), medicine (27, up from 31), pathology (27), and otolarynology—head and neck surgery (31).
Three of the school’s affiliated hospitals in the McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University also fared well in the 2004 research rankings. The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago ranks 2nd, Children’s Memorial Hospital 8th, and Evanston Northwestern Healthcare 22nd.
“NIH research funding rankings are an important indicator of a medical school’s strength,” says Jonathan P. Leis, PhD, executive associate dean for research at the Feinberg School. “In recent years, Northwestern, in conjunction with our hospital partners, has made a commitment to achieve the vision of moving into the forefront of the nation’s preeminent medical schools.”