Nanjing Medical University was founded in 1934 as Jiangsu Provincial College of Health Policy and Management. In the year of 1957, it moved from Zhenjiang to Nanjing and changed its name to Nanjing Medical College. In 1962, it became one of the first groups of medical colleges in China to offer six-year medical programs, and in 1981, it was approved to award master and doctoral degrees.In 1993, it was renamed as Nanjing Medical University and is one of the key universities sponsored by Jiangsu Province. In September 2015, NMU has been approved to be one of the first groups of medical universities which are co-sponsored by the Ministry of Education, National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China and Jiangsu Provincial People’s government.
The university now has eight first-level discipline doctoral programs (basic medicine, clinical medicine, dental medicine, public health and preventive medicine, pharmacy, special medicine, nursing, humanistic medicine), fifty second-level discipline doctoral programs, eleven first-level discipline master’s programs, seventy-three second-level discipline master's programs and seven postdoctoral research stations. Options for discipline programs have crossed the boundaries between medicine, science, engineering, management, law, education and literature. It also has three state-level key disciplines, one key discipline for state-level cultivation, 28 national clinical key specialties, two programs of state key discipline (first-level disciplines of Jiangsu) of cultivation and construction, and three key Jiangsu first-level disciplines. Five disciplines – Clinical Medicine, Molecular Biology and Genetics, Biology & Biochemistry, Neuroscience & Behaviorand Pharmacology & Toxicology have ranked among the top 1% disciplines around the world according to ESI. Four disciplines of the university – namely basic medicine, public health and preventive medicine, clinical medicine, and dental medicine – are Strong Disciplines among Jiangsu colleges and universities.
The university has two campuses, Wutai and Jiangning. Jiangning Campus, located in the university town in Jiangning, Nanjing, has a land area of eighty-seven hectares and is a center of administration, teaching and research.Wutai Campus, located at the south foot of Wutai Hill in Gulou District, Nanjing, has a land area of eight hectares and is a center of clinical teaching and research.
