Dr Banarsi Dass Soni, former Captain in the Indian Military Service, conceived the idea in 1934 and started Arya Medical School in a rented building in Civil Lines, Ludhiana. In 1936, the management of the school was handed over to the Arya Samaj, Saban Bazar, Ludhiana, under the aegis of Arya Pratinidhi Sabha, Punjab.

In 1964 the Arya Medical School became a full-fledged MBBS College, which came to be known as Dayanand Medical College & Hospital (DMCH). The management was taken over by Managing Society of Dayanand Medical College & Hospital, Ludhiana, and industrialist Shri H. R. Dhanda became its founder president.

DMCH was the first hospital in Punjab to set up a dialysis unit in the nephrology service in 1980.

The institution is accredited by the Medical Council of India for the MBBS course as well as several specialty and super-specialty courses.

The college is affiliated to the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, Faridkot, Punjab.

The school offers MBBS, MD/MS postgraduate, PG diploma courses and super-specialties.

The DMCH College of Nursing operates there.

Since 1 April 2001, the Hero DMC Heart Institute (HDHI) has provided care to patients with heart and blood vessel disease.

The National Institutional Ranking Framework ranked the institute 40 in the medical category in 2024.^[4] The institute was ranked 26 among medical colleges in India in 2020 by India Today.^[3]