The school's primary mission is "to increase the supply of primary care physicians to serve the state, to enhance the access of minority and disadvantaged students in obtaining a medical education and to improve health status of citizens in eastern North Carolina."

The legislature set forth a threefold mission for the ECU School of Medicine: to increase the supply of primary care physicians to serve the state, to improve health status of citizens in eastern North Carolina, and to enhance the access of minority and disadvantaged students to a medical education.

Since 1977, when the first class of 28 students enrolled in the four-year School of Medicine, the institution has grown dramatically in its teaching, research and patient care roles.

On May 3, 2000 at East Carolina's Brody School of Medicine, Dr. Randolph Chitwood performed the first robotic heart valve surgery in North America.

Using this technology, surgeons at the school have performed more operations on the heart's mitral valve than any other center in the world by far.

Today the Brody School of Medicine is home to a state of the art integrated cardiovascular disease center, The East Carolina Heart Institute at ECU.

[1][2] Brody School of Medicine has facilities on the campus of East Carolina University, which is situated in the western side of Greenville, adjacent to Vidant Medical Center.

The East Carolina Heart Institute at ECU houses the outpatient center and primary teaching and research location for cardiovascular care.

facility where low-income, uninsured or medically underserved rural families can receive services tailored just for them with sliding-scale fees.

The program has enabled faculty and students from BSOM and College of Nursing, ECU Physicians Pharmacy Services, Medical Family Therapy, Health Psychology, and Social Work to work and learn side-by-side both in the center and in a partnership with Pitt Community College.

The group was founded at the Brody School of Medicine in December 2016 and officially chartered as a recognized student organization on the East Carolina University campus in the fall of 2017.

The organization operates throughout the academic year with fundraising efforts centered around an interdisciplinary head-shaving and hair donation event held each April or May on the ECU Health Sciences Campus.

Originally comprising solely medical students, the group's leadership and participants now spans numerous departments and disciplines including students, faculty, and staff from medical, dental, nursing, PA, PT, and various other graduate and undergraduate degree programs.