Medical Center Firsts
1941
School of Medicine creates the nation’s first department of medical genetics.
1957
Medical Center becomes the first in North Carolina to use cobalt to treat cancer patients.
1964
Jesse Meredith, M.D., performs the first hand reimplantation in the United States.
1969
Ultrasound is used to detect prostate cancer—a first in nation.
1979
Medical school establishes the nation’s first toll-free hotline for epilepsy information.
1981
Brenner Center for Adolescent Medicine opens, first of its kind in the state.
1983
Medical Center is first in the nation to use transcranial Doppler ultrasound, measuring atherosclerotic buildup on the walls of the carotid artery and imaging the arterial circulation in the brain.
1986
First in nation to use lithotripsy to break up common duct gallstones.
Medical Center performs its first heart transplant.
1989
Medical Center surgeons perform the first single-lung transplant in the state.
1990
WFUBMC cardiologists become the first in North Carolina to successfully open a blocked artery using a laser.
WFUBMC is first in the state to have a molecular cytogenetics (cell genetics) laboratory and to use stereotactic radiosurgery to treat tumors and blood vessel abnormalities deep within the brain.
1997
J. Paul Sticht Center on Aging and Rehabilitation opens. First facility in the world to incorporate geriatric acute care, transitional care, psychiatry and rehabilitation under one roof.
1998
WFUBMC installs the first Gamma Knife in the state.
1999
Medical Center is first in the world to report the successful use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to diagnose significant blockages in blood vessels leading to the heart.
BestHealth® opens, the state’s first community health resource center to be located in a shopping mall.
N.C. Baptist Hospital is the first in the state to achieve Magnet Award status from the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), a recognition that the nation’s highest standards for nursing excellence are met.
Wayne VonSeggen, a WFUBMC employee, is the first physician assistant ever elected to the N.C. Medical Board and is later elected president.
2001
Physicians at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center are the first in the world to treat a brain tumor patient with the newly FDA-approved GliaSite® Radiation Therapy System.
Medical Center researchers begin the first national, randomized, controlled trial to study how pediatricians can help prevent violence by addressing prevention during office visits.
School of Medicine researchers complete a study that provides the first prospective surveillance data on the prevalence of green tobacco sickness among Latino migrant and seasonal farm workers in North Carolina.
2002
School of Medicine researchers are first to report that social rank, whether an individual is dominant or subordinate, has a significant influence on cocaine abuse in monkeys.
Researchers from the School of Medicine and Advanced Cell Technology report that they have developed a large variety of specialized cell types—including heart and brain cells—from embryonic monkey stem cells through a process called parthenogenesis.
The world’s first live Internet broadcast of a deep brain stimulator implantation for Parkinson’s disease—and the state’s first live webcast of a surgical procedure of any kind—takes place at the Medical Center.
2003
Wake Forest Baptist researchers are first to report that unidentified genes on chromosomes 18 and 3 are linked to severe kidney damage in younger blacks with diabetes.
Firsts
Scientists at the Comprehensive Cancer Center develop a colony of mice that successfully fight off virulent transplanted cancers. The discovery of this genetic protection could explain why some people are protected against cancer despite prolonged and intense exposure to carcinogens.
2004
A WFUBMC ophthalmologist is the first to report that humidity and temperature levels can affect the results of LASIK surgery.
A WFUBMC pediatric pulmonologist is first to show that patients with cystic fibrosis have very little mucous in their airways—not too much mucous as was previously thought.
Medical Center researchers identify a gene involved in the action of insulin that is associated with type 2 diabetes. One common form of the gene seems to be associated with diabetes—another common form seems to be protective.
2005
The Medical Center is the first in N.C. and surrounding states to install magnetoencephalography (MEG)—an innovative diagnostic tool that non-invasively measures minute magnetic brain activity and provides information about the location of normal and abnormal brain functions.
2006
The first human recipients of organs grown in the laboratory from the patients’ own cells, are reported by the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
White blood cells from a strain of cancer-resistant mice, first reported in 2003, cure advanced cancers for the first time in ordinary laboratory mice, and protect the mice from new cancers.
2007
The Institute for Regenerative Medicine announces success isolating true stem cells from placenta and amniotic fluid.
Scientists identify a gene associated with kidney failure in diabetes.
2008
Scientists from the Center for Human Genetics report that a simple blood test can help determine which men are likely to develop prostate cancer.
Frank M. Torti, M.D., M.P.H., director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center, is appointed principal deputy commissioner and first chief scientist to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.