Dear Colleagues,
This coming summer, the Alpert Med School community will move to the Medical School’s new (and first) home at 222 Richmond Street. We are launching this newsletter to keep you informed of and connected to this next phase of our history. The newsletter will come out once a month to start. We hope that you find the content informative and helpful.
The New Website
To help with the transition and to get everyone acquainted with the building, neighborhood, and developments in the educational program, we have launched a website dedicated to the building: http://med.brown.edu/education/new_building/. The site contains many visual representations of the building to provide an idea of what “home” will look and feel like. In addition to floor plans, there are renderings of the academies, clinical exam rooms, seminar rooms, anatomy lab and lecture halls.
Two areas that I would like to highlight are the academy spaces and the clinical exam rooms. We are moving to a system of three academies that will form the basis for the Medical School’s advising and student support system. Each academy will have its own area that includes relaxation and study space, meeting rooms, administrative and faculty spaces, and a kitchen. We are looking forward to the enhanced sense of community that we expect this system will bring to our students, faculty and staff.
The building’s 16 clinical exam rooms will have the look and feel of an outpatient clinical facility. Medical students will be able to conduct mock interviews and physical exams without leaving the Medical School. The exam rooms will have video-capture capabilities to allow students and instructors to review their work. This addition to the Medical School will provide real-world experience in a single centralized, location, proving invaluable to students and faculty.
The Website also has an FAQ section. This is based on questions that the med school administration has received over the past few months. We expect this section to act as a living document, and we will be adding additional information as the questions come up.
Your move
One of the most frequent questions we get asked are when a specific department / group will move. Details of each group’s move will be provided by the group supervisor, but the plan is to start moving in July, with everyone in place by August 10th, when orientation begins for first-year students.
The Website will provide information about the transformation currently occurring in the Jewelry District. The former Jewelry-District is rapidly becoming a “Knowledge District,” a center of education, biomedical research and technology. The Medical School will be the cornerstone of this neighborhood, and our presence is expected to spur, among other things, the expansion of retail, restaurant, and entertainment establishments. We are excited to be a part of this important economic development process for Providence.
The Website also contains a retail, restaurant, and points-of-interest map, as well as information on a future bike and pedestrian bridge to link the area to College Hill.
Upcoming Events
July/August – Faculty and staff move into the new building
August 10 – New students arrive for first-year orientation
August 15 – Classes start for the first year students. There will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the arrival of the Class of 2015, the first class that will complete its entire education in the new building.
October 15 (Family Weekend) – Donor Recognition Event.
October (date TBA) – Brown Corporation Building Dedication.
Clarity and easy access to information are at the heart of the new design and we are very proud of the work that has gone into the new site. We hope you will take some time and explore the site and let us know what you think.
Cheers!
Phil
Philip Gruppuso, MD
Associate Dean for Medical Education