Fonds F1496 - Queen's University. School of Medicine fonds

The School of Medicine was established in 1854, as the Faculty of Medicine, after more than a decade of effort by Queen's officials to add a medical school to the young University. It began in a small limestone house at 75 Princess Street, soon thereafter moving to Summerhill, where the rest of the University was located. In 1858, it moved into the first permanent building that Queen's built for itself: the Old Medical Building. But in 1866, the Faculty split from the University after medical professors protested against having to make a public declaration of Presbyterian faith. The Faculty became the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Kingston, which retained a loose affiliation with the University. The RCPSK eventually reunited with Queen's in 1892 in order to share resources and expertise.

The faculty grew enormously in the 20th century, evolving into one of Canada's premier centres for medical research as well as teaching. In recent decades, the most important development in medical education was the establishment in the 1960s of the Kingston Health Sciences Centre, which brought the Faculty of Medicine and the School of Nursing together with local hospitals to provide cooperative facilities for exemplary patient care, research, and training. Planning for a nursing program at Queen's began in 1941 The first students were admitted in the Fall of 1942 and the first Director of the School of Nursing was appointed in 1946. In 1979, the School of Rehabilitation Therapy, originally a stand alone unit, became part of the Faculty.

In 1998, the School of Medicine and School of Rehabilitation Therapy were joined by the School of Nursing to become the current Faculty of Health Sciences. The Faculty of Health Sciences forms the academic core of the Academic Health Sciences Centre and as part of the Health Care Network of Southeastern Ontario. Academic programs are based on campus but are distributed throughout southeastern Ontario's health care facilities. Academic programs are based on campus but are distributed throughout affiliations with Quinte Healthcare Corporation, Lakeridge Hospital, Peterborough, Perth, Brockville, Weeneebayko (Moose Factory) amongst many other sites. The innovative Alternative Funding Plan (AFP), a contractual agreement of SEAMO and the Ministry of Health & Long-Term Care and the Ministry of Community & Social Services provides stable funding for the delivery of research, education and extensive tertiary , secondary and some primary care in a region of over one million people.

The Faculty offers programs in undergraduate and postgraduate medical education, undergraduate education in Physical and Occupational Therapy and graduate education in Rehabilitation Science, undergraduate and postgraduate education in Nursing, including the Nurse Practitioner Program, graduate education in the Life Sciences, and collaborative programs in Respiratory Therapy and in X-Ray Technology.