New York City has been a center of health care and education since the 18th century, a role that greatly expanded after 1900. By the end of the 20th century New York State was educating 15 % of all American physicians, by far the largest in the nation, and the bulk of these received their training in one of New York City's four major medical schools or half a dozen important medical centers and specialty hospitals. The city boasted the nation's oldest school of nursing (Bellevue, 1873) and two important dental schools as well. For many years, New York State led the states in amount of federal dollars awarded for biomedical research, with a large percentage of it going to institutions in New York City. In addition, the City's Department of Health has long been prominent in a large variety of public health campaigns.

As important was New York's role in articulating and funding the country's health care needs through its philanthropic foundations. The Carnegie Corporation financed and published Abraham Flexner's 1910 landmark report on the state of American medical education. The Rockefeller Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund and the General Education Board, all based in the city, provided significant funding for biomedical research, especially before the federal government began supporting such research after World War II. The triumphs and, later in the century, the adversities of the U.S. health care and education system were all played out in New York City, sometimes in characteristically extreme forms.