The Division of General Medicine at Columbia University was founded in 1977, and its faculty group practice, the Associates in Internal Medicine, was begun in 1979. During the 1980's, the Division's major activities were in clinical care of community residents and in the training program for the Department of Medicine's house staff. In 1991 major departmental resources were allocated to the reinvigoration of the Division. In 1992 Dr. Steven Shea was named Chief of the Division of General Medicine and within the next few years, several full-time research faculty were recruited to the Division. In 1992, successful applications were made to HRSA for faculty development (D08 program) and fellowship training (T32 NRSA program) grants and these have served as the major funding sources for our fellowship program. The Division's faculty has continued to expand with the incorporation of the Hospitalist group and the Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Heath. There are now more than 100 faculty whose appointments are within the Division of General Medicine. Of these, 28 are based in the Division's faculty group practice, the Associates in Internal Medicine and play a major role in house staff and fellowship training in primary care and ambulatory general internal medicine.

The Division presently has over fifteen faculty with their own grants or with major research activities. This group includes faculty with appointments in other centers and departments, including Medical Informatics and the Division’s Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health group headed by Drs Thomas Pickering and Karina Davidson. The Division's core research faculty include Drs. Shea, Barr, Davidson, Luchsinger, Moran, Shimbo, and Stetson, all of whom are training faculty for the fellowship program. Most of these research faculty are based in the Division's 7,000 square foot complex which also houses the Division's database manager, the grants administrator, several research coordinators and project assistants, and the Division's research conference room. Within this complex, each fellow has their own desk space. Each trainee is provided with a personal computer including the latest word processing, database, and statistical software. Through an Ethernet connection fellows can access Columbia University's extensive on-line research facilities as well as the World Wide Web.