Nashville General Hospital

You’re now standing in front of Nashville General Hospital. In its beginnings, Meharry had no teaching hospital where students could gain practical experience. Black students were not allowed to practice medicine in Nashville’s white hospitals, and the school was still the small medical department of Central Tennessee College. One early Meharry graduate, Dr. Robert Fulton Boyd, gave students the opportunity to gain clinical experience at Mercy Hospital, which he founded on South Cherry Street, now Fourth Ave S, in 1900. Boyd was Nashville’s first African American doctor and taught at Meharry following his graduation. When Meharry became an independent college in 1915, it became clear it would need its own hospital. The new facility, named after Meharry’s first president and dean, Dr. George W. Hubbard, opened on First Ave S that same year.

By 1928, Hubbard Hospital had grown significantly, and it was evident that Meharry needed a new, more modern hospital. When Meharry moved to North Nashville in 1931, they built a new medical building. The tall, white towers you see today—named the George Russell Towers after the General Motors executive who led the national fundraising efforts for their construction—were built in 1976 as part of a massive campus expansion under president Lloyd Elam. The hospital became the Nashville General Hospital in 1994, when the city’s public hospital moved to this location. Today, under the direction of Meharry faculty, Meharry's students and residents train at Nashville General Hospital, which strives to provide equitable, affordable access to care for the Nashville community.

Walk past the hospital entrance to the building next door, Dorothy Brown Hall. This is is the final stop of this tour.