Rusk Rehabilitation is the world's first[citation needed] and among the largest university-affiliated academic centers devoted entirely to inpatient/outpatient care, research, and training in rehabilitation medicine for both adults and pediatric patients.

As of 2008[update] Steven Flanagan is the chairman of rehabilitation medicine and medical director of the Rusk Institute.

His experience treating wounded soldiers during World War II led him to develop the institute around the philosophy that the patients are to be cared for as an entire person, not only the physical disability or illness.

[2] The institute opened at interim quarters located at 325 East 38th Street on June 17, 1948.

[3][4] It remained at that location until January 1951, when its new facility opened at 400 East 34th Street, between First Avenue and FDR Drive, the first building to be completed in the development of the New York University-Bellevue Medical Center (now the NYU Langone Medical Center).