December 11, 2006

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — UC Davis Health System leaders and campus officials, along with students, faculty, legislators and community members, today dedicated a 121,000-square-foot education building and medical library in Sacramento. The new facility replaces older buildings on the Davis campus and serves as the school's new headquarters for medical training at all levels.

The $46.2 million facility — located at 45th and X Streets at the heart of UC Davis' Sacramento campus — replaces outdated classrooms, doubles the space for library services and serves as a hub of learning where students, faculty, staff and UC Davis partners collaborate to improve the health of patients everywhere.

Students begin their classes in early January in the new building. It will mark the first time that all four years of the medical school class will receive training in a single location. Before now, first- and second-year medical students studied in facilities on the Davis campus while third- and fourth-year students, along with residents and fellows, received most of their training at the Sacramento campus.

“Today marks the fulfillment of a vision to offer our medical students a seamless, integrated experience on one campus, where they are exposed to medical research and immersed in clinical care,” said UC Davis Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef. “With the completion of this remarkable, state-of-the-art education hub, we will now be able to better prepare our physicians of tomorrow to serve the patients of tomorrow.”

“This learning facility represents a realization of the vision and hard work of many people who shared the goal of enhancing the education of our future physicians, thereby improving the health and well-being of us all,” added Virginia S. Hinshaw, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor at UC Davis who serves as the governing body for UC Davis Health System.

While the Sacramento facility becomes the academic home for all four years of medical school, students will continue to participate in research programs and collaborate with academic units on the Davis campus, including the School of Medicine basic science departments, Genome Center, School of Veterinary Medicine and Colleges of Biological Sciences, Engineering and Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Designed to accommodate the school's modern curriculum, the building includes two 150-seat lecture halls, 60- and 30-seat classrooms, a clinical skills center, multiple 12- and 16-seat teaching rooms, and a student commons area that includes lockers, mailboxes, a lounge, study areas and a cafe.

The building is equipped with the latest educational and communications technologies, from wireless connectivity to high-quality projection and video streaming. Videoconferencing and distance learning technologies link students and faculty with the main hospital, UC Davis campus, regional centers, rural sites and other institutions nationwide, allowing students to monitor and learn from live surgeries, telemedicine consultations and other doctor-patient interactions, for example.

The clinical skills center, with a mock patient-waiting area and eight examination rooms, allows students to practice diagnostic and communication skills and interactions with standardized patients, which are captured on digital video for later self-assessment and feedback from faculty.

Lecture halls feature state-of-the-art multimedia and interactive learning tools, graduated seating and acoustic ceiling panels. Classroom workstations are outfitted with hard-wired computers and retractable flat-screen monitors, with additional connections for laptops, to support virtual microscopy, diagnostic imaging, interactive case studies and small-group learning.

The F. William Blaisdell, M.D., Medical Library includes nearly 15,000 square feet of space housing reading areas, group study rooms and traditional library stacks. Its media center features computer workstations with advanced graphics, statistical and multimedia presentation capabilities, and consultation rooms with videoconferencing and distance-learning technologies. Named in honor of UC Davis professor emeritus F. William Blaisdell, a founding father of modern trauma care, the library houses Blaisdell's private collection of books, manuscripts and journals depicting the history of medicine and trauma care dating back to the Civil War.

“Our curriculum will leverage all of these resources to help students learn in new ways,” said Claire Pomeroy, UC Davis vice chancellor for Human Health Sciences and dean of the School of Medicine. “By offering all four years of medical school in a single location near our hospital, students can more fully experience patient care, our active translational research program, and our strong community partnering efforts. By training the next generation of physicians, we are creating the innovative leaders of tomorrow who will carry on UC Davis' strong reputation for multidisciplinary teams, continuous learning, community service and celebration of diversity.”

The school's current buildings for education on the Davis campus — Tupper Hall and the Medical Sciences 1 complex — were built in the mid-1970s. While many laboratories have been renovated, the buildings were not designed for current trends in medical education, which call for extensive use of videoconferencing and other telemedicine technologies; multimedia teaching tools; small, interactive group learning; and access to computers with high-speed Internet connections for scientific and medical research. In addition, the geographic separation of the lower and upper classes impeded mentoring relationships and other student interactions.

The new building, which was recently recognized as the best Northern California higher-education construction project of 2006 by California Construction magazine, is being financed through health system reserves and philanthropic support.

UC Davis School of Medicine is one of five University of California medical schools. Founded in 1966, it graduated its first class of physicians in 1972. Today it has a major impact in Northern California through education of new physicians, research activities, patient care and public service, and plays a critical role in shaping the quality of health care throughout inland Northern California and the Central Valley.