University of Utah has received a $15 million gift from Intermountain Healthcare to fund a new planned medical education building, replacing the venerable 52-year-old U School of Medicine building.
Intermountain Healthcare’s senior management team and board bestowed the gift as an expression of gratitude for the U’s commitment to providing high-quality medical education in the state of Utah and surrounding region and for educating the majority of physicians who practice here.
“Intermountain Healthcare is committed to advancing medical education in our state, working with the University of Utah,” said Marc Harrison, Intermountain Healthcare president and CEO. “It’s an important part of our charitable mission to support the education of physicians and other medical professionals, and the university plays such a critical role in that work and does it exceptionally well. We greatly value the cooperative and collegial relationship our two institutions have had through the years, in which we strive together to improve medicine and health care for the people of Utah.”
“The decision to support the new education building reflects the collaborative relationship and genuine friendship that exists between our respective institutions,” said University of Utah President David W. Pershing. “This gift will have a lasting impact for decades to come, as we strive to provide the very best in medical education for our students.”
“This transformative gift reflects our shared commitment to the health of people in our state and in the region,” said A. Lorris Betz, interim executive dean of the U’s School of Medicine, senior vice president for health sciences and CEO of University of Utah Health.
“Together our institutions work to train some of the best and brightest students in the country. We are incredibly grateful to Intermountain Healthcare for sharing a mutual vision to transform medical education with this gift.”
The 52-year-old School of Medicine building is outdated, seismically unsound and must be torn down in the coming years. To train the physicians of the future, the design for a new education complex will be a new home for medical students and include programming designed to catalyze health care innovation and education.
The University of Utah trains:
- 2/3 of the doctors who practice in Utah
- 125 new doctors every year
- 44 new physician assistants every year
- More than a thousand nurses, dentists, physical therapists, dietitians and other health care professionals each year
The new Medical Education and Discovery building is part of a larger health sciences campus transformation and is one of the most ambitious building projects to ever take place at the University of Utah. The project includes an ambulatory care complex, the Craig H. Neilsen Rehabilitation Hospital and the Medical Education and Discovery building. Construction on the Medical Education and Discovery building is expected to begin in 2019, and is scheduled to be completed in 2022.
“We face a critical physician shortage here in Utah and training the next generation of physicians and health care providers is more important than ever,” said Betz. “As health care changes, how we teach and train also needs to change. This isn’t just about a new building. This is about moving education forward, out of silos and into an interdisciplinary environment where collaboration and new ideas take shape, where we can focus on health, wellness, prevention and treatments for disease. We are grateful to partner with Intermountain Healthcare for this important goal.”
For more information on the campus transformation project, please visit uofuhealth.org/campustransformation.