First- and second-year medical students are logging some serious hours in the Indiana University School of Medicine’s new $230 million education and research building.
“I am in here at least five days a week,” said Emma Edwards, a first-year student from Columbus, Indiana. “I actually have been in here the past seven days.”
Officially opened in June, the building is the first classroom space the IU School of Medicine has built on its Indianapolis campus since 1959.
The 326,000-square-foot building, 350 W. 14th St., is just south of the IU Neurosciences Research Center on 16th Street and next to Indiana University Health’s 864-bed, $4.3 billion downtown hospital complex.
The new IU School of Medicine’s primary classroom and education facility and lab previously was on the IU Indianapolis campus. The facility features abundant natural light and collaborative study spaces.
First-year students—or M1s in medical school shorthand—face a daunting academic load and vivid new experiences in the lab.
Edwards, who graduated from Butler University in May with a degree in biochemistry, is focused on her human structure course. She’s studying gross anatomy, embryology and histology.
“Our small group for that is actually our gross anatomy lab, which is up on the second floor,” she said. “That’s where we do our dissections of our donors, and that has been a profound experience.”
She said her introduction to dissecting cadavers on the second floor was more emotional than she expected, especially after the IU School of Medicine session she attended that discussed the motivation of people and their families deciding to donate a body to science. She called it a selfless and giving act.
“Every other day I’m actually in there doing the dissection,” Edwards, 22, said. “And then on the days I’m not dissecting, I’m being taught by my peers who did the previous dissection.”
In one recent session, her group did a laminectomy, a procedure designed to relieve pressure on the spinal cord.
“Never in my life did I think I would ever get to see a spinal cord,” Edwards said. “I’m just incredibly grateful for the people who have given so much for us to learn.”
Dylan Zhou, a second-year medical student from Carmel, said he is happy to be in the updated space. He added that he was excited about the still-to-open medical simulation center in the new building. As of now, the simulation center is at Fairbanks Hall on 10th Street.
Simulation centers allow students to work in a hospital environment with patient beds. Practice exam rooms help students practice examining patients and taking medical histories.
First- and second-year medical students spend much of their time in the new building as part of study-and-peer groups known as processional learning communities, or PLCs.
The groups are named after types of Indiana trees. Edwards is in the pawpaw group, and Zhou is in the dogwood group.
The groups are part social, part academic as first- and second-year students navigate medical school.
“That’s where I met some of my closest friends, beginning at orientation,” said Zhou, 23, a University of Chicago graduate. “We know each other fairly well, but I wouldn’t say we study with each other.”
Through multiple student groups for coursework and labs, he said, “you end up finding your people one way or another.”