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The Department of Neurosurgery at the Medical College of Virginia/Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2019. It was founded by C. C. Coleman, who directed the US Army School of Brain Surgery during World War I and was one of the original members of the Society of Neurological Surgeons. Coleman began a residency program that was among the first four such programs in the United States and that produced such prominent graduates as Frank Mayfield, Gayle Crutchfield, and John Meredith. Neurosurgery at VCU later became a division under the medical school's surgery department. Division chairs included William Collins and Donald Becker. It was during the Becker years that VCU became a leading National Institutes of Health-funded neurotrauma research center. Harold Young oversaw the transition from division to department and expanded the practice base of the program. In 2015, Alex Valadka assumed leadership and established international collaborations for research and education. In its first 100 years, VCU Neurosurgery has distinguished itself as an innovator in clinical research and an incubator of compassionate and service-oriented physicians.

The Clinical Medical Librarian (CML) Program of the Tompkins-McCaw Library is a special instructional initiative to teach third-year medical students the use of information resources in the clinical setting. Librarians spend one week with selected internal medicine teams participating in work rounds and instructing team members in the use of the medical literature. The librarian assists team members to identify and retrieve relevant information through computer workstations located in the hospital. Photocopies of journal articles are made available to team members through the CML document delivery program.