The Hospital Graduates is one of the oldest physicians groups in the US. The Club was founded in NYC in 1886 and is composed of physicians from a variety of medical specialties from academic medical centers in the NY metropolitan area (e.g. Columbia, Cornell, Memorial-Sloan Kettering, NYU and Yale). Many of the members are Department chairpersons or Divison chiefs at the various hospitals. The founders intended the Club to provide a congenial setting for “the advancement of the Medical Science, and the mutual interest of its members.”
The Club serves as a venue to exchange ideas across a variety of areas. The group currently meets 4 times a year at the Century Association and invites speakers from diverse backgrounds including medicine, law, the arts, etc. Some of the recent speakers include Andrew Heyward (formerly at CBC News), Michael Mukasy (former Attorney General under Bush II), Peter Yarrow (from Peter, Paul and Mary), Robert Mann (lead violinist and founder of the Julliard String Quartet), Frank Oz (co-founder with Jim Henson of the Muppets and of Sesame Street), Enrico Donati (the last living Surrealist artist), and Christopher Apostle (Director of Old Master Paintings at Sotheby’s).