Inside Duke Medicine
Ground-breaking ceremony for SOM’s new Learning Center
posted October 18th, 2010A ceremonial ground-breaking for the new School of Medicine Learning Center was held at 4 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 15.
The event took place at the site of the former medical center bookstore on Coal Pile Drive between Duke University Hospital and the Duke Clinic/Morris building.
“Medical education and the practice of medicine have changed dramatically since our current facilities were built,” says Nancy Andrews, M.D., Ph.D., dean of the Duke University School of Medicine. “In fact, this is the first new home for medical student education since classes started in the Davison Building in 1930.”
When it is completed in late 2012, the $53 million, six-floor, 84,000-square-foot building will house teaching clinical labs, a ground floor auditorium, and flexible, state-of-the-art classrooms with moveable walls and chairs to accommodate team-based learning activities.
“The practice of medicine is moving away from individual physicians acting as sole providers, and toward interdisciplinary teams of health professionals who work together to manage patient care,” says Andrews.
An entire floor will be dedicated to simulation laboratories that can transform from mock clinical exam rooms to surgery suites to emergency rooms. A student life center will offer students from across the medical campus places to gather, dine, study and converse.
The facility will be located at the heart of the medical campus, in close proximity to the medical library as well as the new hospital addition (Duke Medicine Pavilion) and the new Duke Cancer Center, both of which are under construction.
A tree-lined promenade will open to a plaza in front of the new building, and will serve as an important thoroughfare from the Duke Medicine research buildings on Research Drive, to the Duke School of Nursing and Duke clinics located along Trent Drive.
Construction is scheduled to begin early next year.
Watch video of the School of Medicine a cappella group singing "This Could Be The Start of Something Big!" at the event.