Welcome to the School of Medicine
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine is proud to be recognized among the nation’s top medical schools across a wide range of measures, including the excellence of our faculty, staff, students, trainees and alumni, as well as the impact of our research and clinical care.
I am honored to serve as dean of the School of Medicine. I accepted this responsibility because I deeply believe in our mission: to improve health globally by linking groundbreaking innovation and research directly to patients and populations within a world-class medical and education ecosystem.
At the School of Medicine, we create careers to cure disease.
Cleveland is a medical destination, and CWRU is fortunate to be part of a vibrant and highly collaborative academic healthcare community. The School of Medicine serves as a unifying force across Cleveland’s major academic medical centers—Cleveland Clinic, Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center, MetroHealth and University Hospitals—bringing together physicians, scientists, educators and staff in a shared commitment to transdisciplinary collaboration and impact.
Together, our faculty across these five campuses in Northeast Ohio and around the world provide an extraordinary foundation for patient care, research discovery, policy-relevant population health work and access to innovative therapies. Our staff at every level are essential to creating a dynamic environment for learning and discovery, working together to advance knowledge, improve care and drive innovation across the school and our partner hospitals.
As an academic research institution, our work spans cancer, neuroscience, genetic disorders, immunology, infectious disease, cardiometabolic disease, psychiatric disorders, community health, environmental health, quantitative biosciences and artificial intelligence. We develop genomic therapeutics, cell and targeted therapies, antibodies, vaccines, antibiotics and first-in-human clinical trials. And our entrepreneurship and commercialization efforts extend the impact of our discoveries, improving lives by moving ideas from the laboratory into practice through patents, licensing and startup activity.
Our educational programs are equally robust. This past July, we matriculated 216 MD students, 450 master’s students, 41 physician assistant students, 82 Master of Science in Anesthesia students and 85 PhD students. We support science and medical education opportunities for high school and undergraduate students, along with post-baccalaureate programs for those preparing for MD, PhD, PA or MSA training. In addition, we offer three CWRU undergraduate majors in neuroscience, nutrition and biochemistry in collaboration with the College of Arts and Sciences.
At the heart of this work is our Health Education Campus, which opened in 2019 to serve as a collaborative space shared across schools and institutions. It is home to our two Liaison Committee on Medical Education-accredited MD programs—the Western Reserve 2 Curriculum and the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine—as well as the CWRU School of Dental Medicine and the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing. This hub helps foster interprofessional education and collaboration across the university and our clinical partners.
That spirit of collaboration extends beyond the campus itself, shaping how we engage with our community and the world. We are deeply committed to the health and prosperity of Cleveland, a city that continues to face many of the complex health challenges common to urban communities. In partnership with the City of Cleveland and our academic medical centers, we work to develop, teach and implement solutions grounded in research, education and community engagement. But our work doesn’t end there—our global reach includes longstanding collaborations and research programs in England, Uganda, the Middle East, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, European Union countries and Latin America.
I am confident that each member of our community—faculty, investigators, educators, staff, trainees, community partners and students—will continue to make unique and meaningful contributions to our mission. Together, we will advance discovery, train the next generation of physicians and scientists, and improve health and save lives here in Cleveland and around the world.
To learn more about our plans for the future, I invite you to review our Strategic Plan for 2026–2031.
If you would like to support our mission, please visit our giving page.
Stan Gerson, MD
Dean, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Senior Vice President for Medical Affairs
Distinguished University Professor
Asa & Patricia Shiverick – Jane B. Shiverick (Tripp) Professor of Hematologic Oncology
Professor of Medicine and Oncology