The College of Physicians and Surgeons is guided by the principle that medical education is university education. The acquisition of knowledge and skills is important in professional education, but far more vital is a profound understanding of science, the art and the ethic within which both knowledge and skills are applied. As a part of Columbia University, the College builds its curriculum, selects its officers of instruction, and marshals, its enormous resources of equipment and clinical experience to develop in the student this understanding of medicine. Within the curriculum for the M.D. degree is the fundamental knowledge from which the natural bent is discovered toward general or special practice, research, teaching, or administration. The postgraduate programs of the College provide training in the specialties, help the graduate physician to keep abreast of new knowledge and support the research from which the physician's knowledge develops.

St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center is a University Hospital of Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons New York Medical College.