It is named after Indian freedom fighter and first education minister of independent India Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.

The college is a tertiary care referral centre and has teaching programs for graduate and postgraduate degrees and residency and subspecialities/fellowships (referred to as superspecialities in India).

The foundation stone for the new buildings of the college was laid in October 1959 by Govind Ballabh Pant at the 30 acre land of the old Central Jail which was not in use.

Four hospitals – Lok Nayak Jay Prakash Hospital, GB Pant Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research, Maulana Azad Institute of Dental Sciences and Guru Nanak Eye Centre – are situated in the college campus and attached to the college.

[11] The infamous Khooni Darwaza where Bahadur Shah Zafar's two sons and a grandson were shot by the British in September 1857 during the First war of independence is opposite the main entrance of the college.