Although affiliated with the public Western Michigan University, WMed is administratively a private nonprofit school under a separate corporate charter.
In March 2011, Western Michigan University received a gift of $100 million for the medical school from the Stryker family.
Dunn's address sparked community interest and within six weeks a Medical School Feasibility Committee was formed.
Consultants were retained to conduct detailed feasibility assessments in 2008 with funding provided by the local Kalamazoo Community Foundation.
By January 2009, the feasibility studies confirmed what Dunn had observed during his short time in southwest Michigan – Kalamazoo has substantial existing assets and the necessary building blocks for developing an outstanding medical school.
A committee composed of the chief executive officers of Borgess Health, Bronson Healthcare, and the president of Western Michigan University began to meet regularly to guide the development process.
Following a national search with multiple on-site interviews of the candidates, Hal B. Jenson, MD, MBA was named as the founding dean of Western Michigan University School of Medicine in January 2011 and began on March 22, 2011.
[3] Later that year, in December, William U. Parfet, the chairman and chief executive officer of MPI Research and the great-grandson of W.E.
Upjohn, donated to WMU a 330,000 square foot building located in downtown Kalamazoo that serves as the home of WMed.
Campus, which opened in June 2014, two months prior to the arrival of WMed's first medical school class in August 2014.
Upjohn Trustee Corporation contributed to a grant establishing the first graduate medical education program in Kalamazoo: a residency in internal medicine at Bronson Methodist Hospital.
This merger included the clinical education and patient care programs, administrative functions, 223 staff, 200 residents, and 61 full-time faculty.
In addition, there were more than 420 clinical faculty members as physicians in the community who volunteered their time and extended the educational experiences for medical students and residents in their private offices.
This was important because the medical school was able to continue with its development efforts, recruit students, and accept applications for its first class that started in August 2014.