Charles Bardeen was the architect of the School of Medicine and Public Health, and his legacy includes a lasting imprint on American medical education. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, he was recruited in 1904 by UW–Madison president Charles Van Hise to establish the University’s two-year medical school, which the legislature approved three years later. By 1925, Bardeen had convinced budget-conscious politicians, income-threatened local physicians, and the general public that the state needed a general hospital and a four-year, university-based medical school. Believing that the school should serve the citizens of the state, Bardeen also developed the nation’s first preceptor program, which sent fourth-year medical students across Wisconsin to learn from practicing physicians.