In 1721, a rich philanthropist and governor of St. Thomas' called Thomas Guy persuaded the other governors to let him build a new hospital next to Tommy's, for 'incurables', as most hospitals at the time only admitted acutely ill patients. It was about a year later that they realised that calling a hospital 'the hospital for incurables' didn't inspire the public with confidence. The name was changed simply to Guy's Hospital.

In the early days, medical student teaching was by apprenticeship to a consultant. Because of their proximity, Guy's and St. Thomas' became known as the United Borough Hospitals and students (unofficially) attended both.

This joint teaching was made formal in 1769 when it was agreed that Guy�s should teach mostly medical subjects and Tommy�s surgical. In 1799, a surgeon was appointed to lecture at Guy�s which contravened the separate system and in effect, the forerunner of UMDS was created.

The London Bridge to Charing Cross railway line ripped through Borough in the 1850's, so St. Thomas' upped sticks and left, first hanging around Vauxhall for a decade and finally landing opposite the Houses of Parliament, where it is now. The present building was constructed post-World War II after a Nazi blitz destroyed the initial edifice.

In 1889, Guy's became the first general hospital to establish a dental school, which flourished alongside the medical school. Lots of diseases take their names from famous Guy's doctors e.g. Addison, Hodgkin and Bright, for example. Ever since its foundation by forward-thinking Mr Guy, the hospital has been at the cutting-edge of medical progress.

So when did this GKT thing happen then? Well, Guy's and Tommy's buried the hatchet (or scalpel, or whatever) in 1982, to form UMDS (United Medical and Dental Schools). A couple of years later the Royal Dental Hospital Dental School and the Institute of Dermatology joined in too.

In 1990, King's and UMDS started flirting and planned to jump into bed together in 1992. However, being well brought up and not wanting to look like easy slags, they didn't actually get down to it until August 1st 1998, when the formal merger created three new schools: the Guy's, King's and St. Thomas' Schools of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences. This created one of the largest centres for medical training and biomedical research in the UK!