Annie E. Rothrock assumed the posts of chief physician and chief nurse respectively. At the time, the school’s course of study, formally known as the American Hospital Nursing Course, lasted two and a half years.
Producing its first graduates in 1923, it moved—together with the American Hospital—into the German Hospital on Taksim’s Sıraselviler Caddesi that same year; in 1928, it moved to the Bedrettin Bey Apartments on Teşvikiye Caddesi, the modern-day home of the Istanbul Fashion Academy. In 1931, the school’s course of study was extended to three years. Its name was formally changed to the American Hospital Nursing Training Course.
In 1945, following the death of Admiral Bristol in 1939, the school’s name was changed to the Admiral Bristol Nursing School in his memory. In 1950, the school, which had hitherto been operating from the first floor of the east wing of the American Hospital in Nişantaşı throughout the 1940s, moved into a new building next door, built based upon a project organized by Sedad Hakkı Eldem. The four-story building provided space for training, teaching units, offices, student dormitories, bedrooms for directors and a range of other living and work spaces. That same year, together with three other nursing colleges, including the Kızılay School of Nursing, the school received accreditation from the Ministry of Education (ME).
Management of the school had been undertaken by foreign nationals since its foundation. In 1948, a Turkish citizen was appointed chief deputy director alongside the foreign director. Esma (İbrahim) Deniz graduated from the school in 1924, before holding the post of chief deputy director from 1948 to 1952, later becoming the school’s first Turkish director between 1952 and 1954.
The school extended its course of study to four years in 1957, becoming a vocational high school, and became known as the Admiral Bristol Hospital Private Nursing Health College. In February 1976, the school was bestowed with private school status by the ME and was registered as the Admiral Bristol Private Vocational High School in Nursing. In 1981, the ME changed its name to the Admiral Bristol Vocational High School in Healthcare.
From its foundation, the School of Nursing had operated with the support of various foreign and local institutions; it began to struggle as a result of a reduction in available funds, stopping its four-year nursing courses in 1994. Despite this, beginning in the 1992-93 academic year, a two-year post-high school Finishing Course in Nursing came into effect with approval from the ME. The Semahat Arsel Nursing Education & Research Center (see SANERC) was established within the American Hospital in 1992.
Thus, the Admiral Bristol Nursing School, which had been acquired by the VKV in February 1995, attained a management structure which was independent from the American Hospital. In September 1996, it moved into a new building on Teşvikiye Büyükçiftlik Sokak. The school affiliated with KU in 1999 and became the Koç University School of Nursing .
SANERC and the KU School of Nursing began operating from the new Semahat & Dr. Nusret Arsel School of Nursing building, built on the former site of the Güzelbahçe Hospital and completed in 2002 with the help of a 10-million-dollar endowment Semahat Arsel and Dr. Nurset Arsel. The former School of Nursing on Büyükçiftlik Sokak was transformed into a dormitory for students of the KU School of Nursing. The academy moved to the Koç University Health Sciences Campus in Topkapı in July 2015 and gained college status in 2016 (see Koç University).