JIPMER, as the Jawaharlal Institute of Post-Graduate Medical Education and Research is popularly known, has grown, in the 20 years since it was established, into one of the country's leading centres of medical education and research. It has attached 850 bed hospital.

This cosmopolitan medical college was born in 1956 as Ecole de Medicin when Pondicherry was still a French colony, only to be later renamed as the prosaic Pondicherry Medical College when Pondicherry became a Union Territory of India.

In 1964, the medical college relocated from downtown Pondy to the present campus at Dhanavantari Nagar and emerged as, the now familiar, JIPMER. Along with the 850-bedded hospital, JIPMER is administered by the Directorate General of Health Services from New Delhi, and is academically affiliated to the Pondicherry Central University.

JIPMER offers various training programs in medicine including those leading to the degrees of MBBS, MD and MS, MLT etc. It also conducts its own entrance examinations for entry into the various programs. Ranked as one of the top three medical institutions in India; the competition to get into JIPMER is, to say the least, fierce. In addition to being a leading center of undergraduate and post-graduate medical training, JIPMER is an important medical research institution in the country.