Nanjing Medical University（NMU）was founded in 1934 as Jiangsu Provincial College of Health Policy and Management. It was renamed Nanjing Medical College in 1957. It adopted its current name Nanjing Medical University in 1993. It is one of the key universities sponsored by Jiangsu Province.

The University consists of twenty-two schools and one independent school (Kangda School). It has twenty-three affiliated hospitals and more than fifty teaching hospitals in Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Shandong etc. Presently the University has more than 1600 employees including 784 skilled teaching staff. NMU has 169 professors, 229 associate professors, 422 doctoral supervisors and 1746 master tutors (with numbers from the affiliated hospitals). Among them, there is 1 academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, 1 foreign academician of the Institute of Medicine of the United States, 3 'Cheung Kong Scholar' Distinguished Professors, 7 recruited global experts from the National 'Thousand Talent' Program, 7 winners of the China National Funds for Distinguished Young Scientists, 8 winners of the Funds for Excellent Youngsters, 1 winner of the National Award for Distinguished Teachers, 7 winners from the New Century Excellent Talent Support Program of the Ministry of Education, 16 Jiangsu Specially-Appointed Professors, 3 'State-Level Teaching Teams', and 1 'Innovation Team' from the Ministry of Education. The university is the training base for the High Level Talent Training Plan of Jiangsu Province, which is also known as the '333 Project'. And NMU has been awarded many times by the superiors for the cause of talent-cultivation.

The university now has 8 first-level discipline doctoral programs (basic medicine, clinical medicine, dental medicine, public health and preventive medicine, pharmacy, special medicine, nursing, humanistic medicine), 50 second-level discipline doctoral programs, 11 first-level discipline master's programs, 73 second-level discipline master's programs and 7 postdoctoral research stations. Options for discipline programs have crossed the boundaries between medicine, science, engineering, management, law, education and literature. It also has 3 state-level key disciplines, 1 key discipline for state-level cultivation, 2 programs of state key discipline (first-level disciplines of Jiangsu) of cultivation and construction, and 3 key Jiangsu first-level disciplines. 4 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. What's more, the affiliated hospitals obtain 28 national key clinical disciplines.

The university has 19 undergraduate programs and 2 '5+3' integrative model for undergraduate and graduate programs. Currently it has more than 13,000 students. The university has formed a comprehensive and multi-level educational system that covers undergraduate and graduate programs, as well as post-doctoral training, for full-time students, adults, and international students.

Nanjing Medical University now has 1 state-level key laboratory, 4 ministry-level key laboratories, and 15 provincial-level key laboratories (engineering centers). Since the beginning of the 'Twelfth Five-year Plan', the scientific research level of NMU has continually ascended and the university has undertaken many '863' programs as well as the '973' programs. NMU has also made new breakthrough in the field of receiving National Natural Science Foundation. What's more, the number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index (SCI) and the impact factors have increased by leaps and bounds. In 2015, 273 projects of NMU were approved by the National Science Foundation, which has stricken the new high. And NMU has been successively awarded as the 'Advanced University for Science and Technology of Jiangsu Province' for consecutive years.

NMU has developed 5 state-level excellent courses and 14 provincial-level excellent courses( including 1 English-medium provincial-level excellent course) . There are also 5 state-level featured programs, 5 provincial-level featured programs, 3 provincial-level brand programs and 2 state-level bilingual education model courses. The university has set up 2 state-level exemplary experiment teaching centers, 9 provincial-level exemplary experiment teaching centers, and 19 laboratories jointly funded by central and local governments. It also has 1 state-level experiment zone for innovation of talent cultivation modes. In addition, it has edited 6 textbooks under the guidance of the nation's 'Twelfth Five-Year Plan'.

The university has two campuses, Wutai and Jiangning. 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. Jiangning Campus, located in the university town in Jiangning, Nanjing, has a land area of eighty-seven hectares and is a center of teaching and research. With more than 1,070, 000 printed medical resources, more than 1,500,000 e-resources and over 6,000 journals in a variety of languages, the university library boasts a vast collection of resources that makes it a center of medical literature in Jiangsu province. NMU is also responsible for publishing 11 academic journals.

In recent years, the university has extensively carried out exchange activities and has actively developed multi-model relationships and cooperation with other colleges and universities. It has established cooperation and academic exchange with medical colleges and institutions in the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, Sweden, Japan, Taiwan Province, and Hong Kong SAR, etc.；and it now has more than 650 students from Hong Kong SAR, Macao SAR, Taiwan Province and other countries around the world.