Nagpur City has the history of 300 years plus when it was the capital of Gond Rajas Buland Shah Baksh. Nagpur was one of the major centre with capital even during British regime. The present Mayo Hospital came into existence in 1862 and was known as “City Hospital”. A medical school was started in 1914 in that hospital and was under Nagpur Education Board. It was named after Mr.Robertson the then Joint Commissioner of Central Province. School was conducting L.M.P. Diploma Course. At that time there was no Medical College for higher studies and the students of Nagpur had to go out for Medical Education. Nagpur became the important centre for education by establishing Nagpur University in 1923. C.P.Berar Government had made arrangement for higher medical education at G.S.(KEM) Medical College, Mumbai and Nil Ratan Sorcar Medical College, Calcutta. This facility was available only for 10-12 students every year and many students could not make it. Hence there was constant demand for independent Medical College in this region.

CONCEPTION OF GMC

The working council of Nagpur University had appointed a committee in 1943 to explore the feasibility to start Medical College in the Central Provinces. The committee recommended positively. But due to second world war these recommendations could not be implemented. As soon as the second world war was over, Government of CP and Berar had taken up firm step in June 1948 and requested Dr.Jiwraj Mehta the then Dean, G.S.Medical College, Mumbai to suggest a suitable location for the proposed Medical College. He studied various locations around Nagpur and selected an open ground (Present Premises) opposite Rajabaksha. While justifying the selection of present site, he said he had specially considered the population of needy and the poor residents around the area, which in turn would become the clinical material for the students of Medical College. The land was belonging to Lt.Col.K.V.Kukdey, the then chairman of Nagpur Improvement Trust who offered the land for this nobel purpose. Immediately within a short time the construction was started on 2nd January 1948.

ESTABLISHING OF THE INSTITUTE 

The Government of CP & Berar had taken another firm step in 1946 to appoint Col.A.N.Bose as a Principal and was entrusted with the responsibility of starting the basic departments of Anatomy and Physiology. In the beginning, the College was started in the Engineering School campus, Sadar, Nagpur. The pre clinical classes used to be held in the same campus, while clinical in Mayo Hospital.

Col.A.N.Bose was M.D.,F.E.C.P. He was a man with vision, but strict disciplinarian. He was unmarried. That time there was no bungalow for Dean and he had to stay in Mount Hotel. He was always concerned for the development of institution. He was the person who picked up Professor Nigam and Professor Berry who became the teachers of National repute. He was very proud of his selection. His untimely death on 31t October 1948 was a great loss to this institution.

The first batch was admitted in July 1947. The students were admitted from Nagpur as well as from Sagar University. The selection criteria was merit in inter science grade and an interview. With the starting of Medical College, threats was looming for closing down the LMP Course, the students of 1946 batch demonstrated on the road for 7 to 8 months under the leadership of Dr.Dubey, Dr.Tiwari and Dr.Rangilal. Shri Ravi Shankar Shukla the then Chief Minister was convinced about the problem and the whole batch was transferred to GMC in 1947.

This batch was allowed to appear 6 months earlier to those who were admitted in 1947 directly to GMC. Out of them only seven students passed in the final examination and they became the first medical graduates of this institute.

An entrance examination was started in 1952, and very next year, it was abandoned. The degree course was of five years without an internship. It was divided in two years in Anatomy and Physiology, two years in Pathology, Pharmacology and Forensic Medicine, while the final year had medicine, Surgery, Opthalmology and gynaecology. The college got MCI recognisition in 1952. The internship was started from 1953 batch and it was 9 months in District Hospital and 9 months in village dispensaries. The teachers used to be very strict and had full attention over the behavior, regularity and sincere work of the students. Some of the teachers used to keep the record of the students.The record was referred during the examination. However, the examinations used to be for scoring better marks. The examination was objective as well as subjective. For many days, the examination used to be watchful about the dress of the students and were never allowed without full apron & polished shoos The girl students in the beginning used to wear 9 yard sarees as their uniform.