The medical education facility for medical and physician assistant students along with the Anesthesiology Department Center for Safety, Simulation & Advanced Learning Technologies (CSSALT) Lab having been moved to the George T. Harrell, MD, Medical Education building’s fourth floor.
The debut of this 95,000-square-foot facility took place on July 29th, which is when medical students began classes and finally got their hands on the new property. The $46 million philanthropic-funded facility is designed to support the UF College of Medicine’s updated medical education curriculum that will further help students learn, care, and lead. The building includes spaces for group meetings and collaboration, a lounge where you can play ping-pong for stress relief, quiet study rooms, and hands-on or simulated educational classrooms.
“The best medicine and patient care are delivered by interdisciplinary clinical teams; physicians, physician assistants, nurses, therapists and many other health professionals who come together in examination rooms, operating rooms, intensive care units and many other spaces to help patients heal,” said Michael L. Good, MD, Dean of the UF College of Medicine. “With that in mind, we have moved from the lecture hall to active, team-based learning in the same type of small-group environments that our students will encounter as practicing physicians and physician assistants.”
This state-of-the-art facility is located on the north edge of the UF Health Science Center campus on Newell Drive across from the Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute. The building was named after the college’s founding dean, who pioneered the expansion of the UF Health Science Center in the 1950s. The four-story building structure is beautifully designed with surrounding glass, metal, and wood accents, providing a bright and welcoming space for students, trainees, faculty and staff.
The first floor includes two 4,600-square-foot circular learning studios wired to accommodate collaborative and applied learning activities with monitor screens positioned so you can see at every angle of the room, circular tables of six for interactive groups in class, and microphones at each table. This floor also includes the medical school admissions office and the H. James Free, MD, Center for Primary Care Education and Innovation. The second floor was designed for students in mind with additional classrooms, spaces for small-group meetings, and the Office of Student Affairs. The top two floors of the building were dedicated to practice-based education with a learning and assessment center featuring 18 standardized patient examination rooms, two hospital rooms, and several classrooms. The fourth floor is where CSSALT will call home; students will practice hundreds of simulated health care scenarios that will prepare them for high-risk situations.